Finish the Fight
by Laces Kai
Summary: 5th story of the Rain or Shine Series, final story of the Sunny Days Saga. In 1898, Jack Kelly and Spot Conlon meet a girl who became part of their story. It's 1902 and all our characters have grown and dispersed but our story isn't over yet...
1. September 1902

**Finish the Fight **

_Fifth & final story in the Rain or Shine Series_

_Finale to Sunny Days Saga_

By Laces

_September 1902 _

The white light streamed in through the tall stained glass windows at the front of the church. The heat of the sunlight prickled against the shoulders of the small congregation gathered on either sides of the narrow aisle. The wedding of Spades Fia and Blue O'Reilly was a small and intimate gathering. In a tiny cobblestone church in the folds of Brooklyn with only a handful of family and close friends the two young people took another step together, growing up from their teenage passion and childhood adoration.

"I do." Blue stated in a recognizable tone. The tall young man sounded confident and determined, everything that he had always been in all of his interactions. But today, in the presence of anyone who ever meant anything to him or his bride, was the first time that happiness crept into his cool demeanor. Wearing the first brand new shirt that he had owned in over five years, Blue's eyes popped with excitement. He seemed unable and unwilling to pry his eyes from the face of his smiling bride.

As the priest repeated the questions of eternity and love to the young woman, Spades smiled as she repeated them back to the love of her entire life. Her dark hair flowing unrestrained, for the first time since she had started the gang, framed her face perfectly. It was the first time anyone in the small church, aside from her family members, had ever seen her wear a dress. Though the white gown was simple and far from being anything extravagant, Spades was glowing.

"I don't think I've ever noticed her eyes are green." Laces leaned into the muscular arms of the man standing next to her. Jack chuckled softly to himself as he bent his head down a bit to whisper back to her.

"I think that might be because they are hazel."

Laces scrunched up her nose, obviously disagreeing with the statement but not daring to speak anymore. She could feel Cricket and South's eyes piercing through the back of her skull. Sitting directly behind them, Laces or as she was better known these days Audrey's guardians sat constantly watching and forever present. Thomas and Casey Longfellow, once legendary birds now members of elite high society sat directly behind Laces and Jack. The wedding guests of Spades Fia and Blue O'Reilly were an interesting mix of history makers, legends, and the foolish youth of the day.

"You may now kiss the bride!" The priest announced happily and not a moment too soon as Blue was on the verge of bursting from impatience. The crowd clapped enthusiastically, the younger men from Brooklyn following their newly crowned prince's example of whooping approval. Bottle Cap elbowed his leader graciously to get him to stop making such a commotion, but Slingshot was immune to jibs from his second in command. The happy couple practically flew out of the church with Angel and Pockets following close behind them before the rest of the church started pouring out of their pews. It took Spot Conlon using his mighty cane to smack the top of Slingshot's head before the hooting and hollering subdued.

"Ow, Spot! What'd you that for?" Slingshot demanded hotly balling up his fists.

"Because Mat-," Spot started but didn't get the rest of the name out.

"Slingshot." Bottle Cap inserted. His voice forcefully giving his oldest friend and once mentor a touch of warning to go with the death glare gracing his young face.

"Now look here," Spot pointed the tip of his cane at Bottle Cap. The second in command of Brooklyn didn't even flinch before Slingshot had slapped the object away.

"Quit your bellyaching Conlon and don't go hitting me on the head with that stupid cane, I might break it." Slingshot warned. Before Spot could respond though Slingshot had slipped his hand into Cammie's and the couple had ducked out of reach of the old leader's wrath. Spot growled at Bottle Cap instead but Cap had moved on and was now talking to David Jacobs. Jack laughed loudly as he patted Spot on the shoulder.

"It looks like Brooklyn. Stubborn, pig headed and impulsive. But when did Brooklyn get so young?" Jack asked.

"Don't tease him Jack, it's not becoming of a man your age." Caitlin Conlon chastised.

"And what age are you suggesting that is there Cat?" Jack demanded. The old Manhattan leader was ushering Laces out of the church, with one arm around her waist tightly. Laces had one arm around his torso and the other hand was clasping the hand that came around her waist.

"He's not going to escape from you right now, Audrey." Critter had appeared next to Laces in his usual unexpected way.

"I'm not letting go." Laces cried in a firm but desperate whisper.

"Really a lady of society…" Critter began in his parental tone of disapproval. Laces shook her head though, allowing strands of her delicately crafted bun to fall loose.

"No, no, no. Today I'm Laces and I'm with the glorious leader of the Manhattan newsies, Jack Kelly." Laces gave a tiny stamp of her boot-clad heel. Critter smiled at the statement of false truth, as the conversation between old friends was turning into a debate of past and present colliding.

"Yeah, well at least the kid in charge of Brooklyn has enough sense not to be gambling in front of a church," Spot waved his cane over to a hunched over Snipeshooter. Jack's face lost its jovial contentment of the previous moment as his brown eyes settled on the scene beyond. Without so much as a thought Jack started to take steps towards the group of gamblers, but Laces clutched to him like a infant to their mother and Cricket stepped in his direct path.

"Ah, Jack Kelly, I believe you were just saying to Spot something about how he wasn't the leader anymore," Cricket gave a mocking smile.

"Snipeshooter should know better, I'm just going to go remind him…" Jack started to protest.

"No one was there to remind you of anything when you were a reckless kid." Buttercup Tate laughed. Though not holding onto Spot for dear life as Laces was doing, Buttercup did appear happier than she had in months on the arm of Spot Conlon.

"Yeah well I was different…" Jack argued.

"As was I, let me just go remind Matthew Kai who is boss around these parts." Spot nodded, itching to clobber the young new leader.

"Slingshot!" Cap snapped. David and Cap stepped into the little circle of old friends and out of their conversation.

"Stop correcting me you half-wit, I am Spot Conlon. I can call him whatever I want." Spot poked Cap in the ribs with his cane.

"I'm going to take this damned thing away from you." Cap grasped his hands around the tip of the cane.

"You dare," Spot had inched closer, his face losing the carefree air of the west and in an instant mirroring the years of Brooklyn life that had created his image of fearlessly dangerous. No one interfered, though it is unknown if it was because they agreed with Spot or with Cap.

"It's not your Brooklyn anymore, you want us to look weak do you then?" Cap shot at his old leader. Spot squinted at him angrily but backed down from his stance, pulling his cane forcefully out of Cap's hands.

"You watch your tone with me, I can still beat you bloody." Spot warned Cap as the younger boy sauntered away again.

"They grow up so fast." Cricket laughed watching the confident stride that was bordering on cocky that Cap had adopted as he rejoined the Brooklyn newsboys.

"At least your kid has got Cap, I mean that Cap has a sturdy head on his shoulders. But my idiot over there, Sand doesn't scare a mouse. If I just walk over there, I don't even have to say anything! Snipes will see me and stop." Jack was arguing. As Jack made the argument though Slingshot and Cap had started heading towards the group of gamblers, cracking their knuckles in the menacing manner that Spot had taught them himself. Jack watched as the Brooklyn leadership broke up the gambling and Snipeshooter was whacked in the shoulder by Slingshot a few times. Spot laughed suddenly at the scene.

"They really are us." He commented.

"I was the one pulling you out of trouble, never once did you have to …" Jack glared at Spot.

"Yeah, yeah?" Spot smiled. "What about when Jacky boy's newsies were playing like they were going on strike? What about then…"

The argument escalated from there again as Critter bent down to whisper to Laces again.

"See sometimes, you need to let go." He warned. Before she could stop the older man, he had tugged at her waist pulling her away from Jack ever so slightly. A crack of space-opened in-between her torso and Jack's where a fall breeze brushed past making Laces shiver. Jack ran his hand up and down her shoulders responding to her reaction to the cold, little did he know that it was their separation that had caused her body to tremble.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: <em>

_This story has been a long time coming, and it is the first of the Sunny Days Saga to ever be posted on . If you need a refresher, or to read them for the first time, find the rest of the stories at .com.  
><em>_Otherwise, please be patient as my current plan involves posting sections up every week. Maybe if the writing is going extremely fast two a week. Let me know what you think! Thanks all Laces. _

**Also. This first section is dedicated to Ealasaid Una.**


	2. The Reception

**_Still September 1902 ..._**

* * *

><p>It was a party out of their very memories. Long tables at the edges of the church hall with a group of merry looking men playing fiddles and other such instruments in a surprising mixture of traditional Irish jigs and contemporary music of the city. The bottles of whiskey sat freely upon each table and the plates of now left over food, still had remains of potatoes and cabbage.<p>

Spades Fia was being paraded around the dance floor passing along playful between Blue, Pockets, Critter and Cricket. The men of the city had forgotten themselves easily, regressing to their boyish antics and charms. This was not the highbrow society wedding that the childhood friends had attended months prior, it was something much more comparable to a newsies poker night.

The pace of the music picked up as Jack pulled Laces body closer to his own and he focused on not tripping over his own feet. Spot mocked Jack's attempt to dance as he jumped around his friend, Buttercup eternally smiling.

"I taught you how to do this dance," Blue laughed above the fiddle, as he tried to show off his new bride and upstage Spot in the same moment.

"Obviously you didn't teach him well." Critter mocked from his edge of the dance floor. The music died down and in a strength only found in adults, the old friends held themselves composed enough not to drop to the floor in a pile of laughter.

"Come, come! Drink to Spades and Blue!" Pockets tumbled towards a table and lifted a bottle of Whiskey.

"How is it that we even have anything left to drink with how much you have consumed Benjamin Harper!" Cat Conlon chastised.

"For that you get the next sip," Pockets winked and shoved the bottle towards the woman. Cat shook her head, trying to refuse but everyone started shouting about the bad luck it would bring and the oldest Conlon drank to the luck of her cousins. Pockets had retrieved the bottle of whiskey as it left Cat's lips.

"Give it here," Laces squealed. She lunged forward ducking before Critter even shot out his arm to stop her, anticipation had become an ingrained aspect of all of movements. A crease formed on the bridge of Jack's nose as he noticed it, how Laces danced around her obstacles as if her whole existence had been nothing but a tightrope walk. Jack shook his head ignoring the hundredth thing he had noticed for the first time today about Laces. Instead he laughed stretching out his long arm and grabbed hold of the bottle of whiskey. Taking a swig before dropping it into Laces' open palm.

"Audrey, you give that bottle back to Pockets." Cricket commanded over a few dancing heads.

"Do you see an Audrey here?" Laces looked around. Jack smiled brightly at her as he rested his arm around her shoulders. It had not escaped anyone that since Jack Kelly had stepped off the train yesterday afternoon that he had never been out of arm's reach from Audrey Kai.

"No. I do not see an Audrey. A Laces…" Jack laughed. Catching the glare from Critter O'Connell though Jack did expertly pry the bottle away from Laces. Slipping his fingers under hers to obtain a firm grasp on the bottle. He passed it along to Spot and carried Laces off in a dance again. Spot took the bottle of whiskey and winked at Buttercup as he passed her along to dance with Bottle Cap.

Spot Conlon practically skipped to the table where Casey and Thomas Longfellow lounged. Critter O'Connell was perched against the same table, seemingly at ease in his lean while knowingly at the ready to spring. It was a position familiar to birds and parents of toddlers alike.

"To your health, Crit." Spot swayed as he held up the bottle. An audible sigh could be heard from Critter O'Connell but the man made no attempt to rain on the younger man's merriment.

"Stop encouraging Audrey." Casey snapped at the tall slightly bronzed Conlon. Spot quirked a smile and popped his golden eyebrows.

"Jacky boy is the one encouraging her… I haven't even gotten to talk to her. Let alone encourage her." Spot slammed the bottle of whiskey down onto the table with some force. Critter slanted an eyebrow at him but didn't say a word.

"She's watching you like a hawk, even if you haven't talked to her." Cricket glanced around Spot's torso. A pair of dark coffee brown eyes was wide and observant from across the room. Spot stared over his shoulder to notice her and wink before turning back to the table.

"You taught her how to watch things like a hawk." Spot shrugged. Critter's hand flashed out in a blinding speed and smacked the back of Conlon's head with just enough force to knock the young man's head into his neck.

"What was that for?" Spot glared at Critter.

"You watch your tone, I can still beat you bloody." Critter smiled as he repeated Spot's own words from earlier in a thinly veiled mockery.

"Have you all gotten so old in our absence that you have to sit it out after only one dance?" Spot sidestepped away from Critter. Critter growled slightly but didn't reach out to smack him again. Cricket laughed as he held South's shoulders closer to him.

"Casey is feeling ill and it is getting late. We should get home…" Cricket started.

"And that means you too, Audrey." Critter barely whispered as he was starring right at the girl.

"She will ignore you." Spot sighed knowingly.

"Blue and Spades will be ready to leave soon too, even the newsboys have started heading home." Cricket defended.

"Well the _newsies _would get locked out if they stay out pass curfew." Spot shrugged.

"Well, maybe your lodgings for the night will lock you out if you miss curfew." Critter suggested still staring at Laces.

Audrey stared back at Critter defiantly for only a second until the song ended and a grin spread across her face and she began clapping. She broke their eye contact first, glancing to her right to stare at the dusty shoulder of Jack Kelly. He was wearing a white shirt that had dirt from somewhere out west still clinging to it. Laces had been studying his shoulder all day, burning the memory of how tall Jack actually was into her memory. Noticing the streaks of gold and hues of greens she had never seen in New York City but could only imagine on the landscape of real cowboys.

"Cousin," Slingshot whispered at her left. Laces jumped and felt the steadying hand of Jack against her waist.

"Matthew…" Laces growled.

"If even Spot Conlon can't call me that anymore what makes you think you can?" Slingshot growled back.

"I was always more charming than Spot Conlon." Laces shrugged.

"It is true." Jack whispered. Slingshot didn't look up to the old Manhattan leader but instead kept his eyes fixed on his cousin.

"You'll be all right?" Slingshot asked carefully. Audrey's eyes flashed with a hint of rage and a great deal of hurt before she nodded.

"Haven't I always been?"

Slingshot nodded shooting out his hands and clasping hers tightly. Slingshot Kai was still short for his age measuring up to be only a hair taller than his cousin. He pushed his cheek onto her cheek and whispered his plead into her ear.

"Stay out of it. Please." With his last words, he quickly dropped a kiss on her cheek and darted off with his girl and Bottle Cap trailing not far behind.

"Everyone is always so worried about you." Jack smiled down at her.

"Maybe it's because I'm always so worried about everyone else." Laces whispered back leaning forward to inhale the scent of Jack Kelly.

"South is looking pale." Blue commented pulling Laces out of her trance. She glanced back to the table, Critter was impatiently snapping his left fingers against his thigh and South did appear very pale.

"This won't be the last time you see us." Spades promised with a barely contained grin.

"I'm suppose to be part of society know," Laces frowned.

"What we ain't society?" Pockets rested his head against Laces bare shoulder.

"I'm expected to be the ward of the Longfellow couple." Laces shrugged trying to get Pockets off.

"It's all over the society pages." Blue laughed.

"Pockets," Spades winked as she took Blue's hand and let her lead her away again.

"Pockets is going to waltz you over to your guardians now." Jack chuckled. Laces let Pockets playfully pushed her across the dance floor. Jack strode along behind the two, never further away than an arm's length from his girl.

"Time to leave." Critter announced. He stretched out as he spoke to grab Laces before she could escape. Pockets winked at Laces as he jumped off back to find Angel.

"Do be a good girl about it, Casey is feeling faint." Thomas whispered as he wrapped his arms around his wife.

"Are you ill?" Laces frowned not even attempting to shake off the firm grasp of Critter. Casey just nodded at the girl as Thomas lifted her to her feet and started leading her out of the warmth of the party. Spot Conlon leaned his shoulder into Laces' shoulder playfully as his blue eyes pierced through her.

"You've been avoiding me?" He mouthed. Laces shrugged as she glanced back over her shoulder to make sure Jack was still near her.

"I am going to give the bride and groom a farewell, when I come back I'll escort you out." Critter stated as he dropped her arm and wandered into the merry wedding guests. Chesa appeared at Laces side the moment Critter left, if by chance or planning could not be ascertained. Chesapeake had begun as of late to appear softer in her usually rough appearance. Her usually cropped hair was growing out past her shoulders and there was a rosy tint to her rounding cheeks. The old bird no longer just disappeared into her surroundings effortlessly because something had changed about her. Not even the stubborn, set in her ways Chesapeake could escape the marching of time that had settled around her.

"You do know Casey and Thomas Longfellow are part of the Knickerbockers society of New York." Chesa stated lazily letting her eyes dart around. Laces knew she was studying everything in the room from where Critter was standing to what kind of shoes the fiddle player was wearing.

"A knickerbocker?" Laces sighed. Chesa rarely just spoke to speak, she always had a purpose with her conversation. A habit probably formed from years of having to gain and give information rapidly.

"The high brow, rich society of the city. Now that you are back, you should know this will be harder than the society of the shore. Most of them weren't even knickerbockers." Chesa explained.

"Why don't you just come out and tell her what you want to tell her Chesa, why always beating around the bush?" Spot demanded. Chesa ignored him though and maintained her scanning of the room.

"I won't be seeing the newsies anytime soon?" Laces guessed.

"South McCain use to be an expert at living a double life, maybe, just maybe she will teach you how to do both. But now, in her condition it might not be possible…" Chesa trailed off as she stepped forward to meet Critter as he approached.

"What were you telling her?" Critter growled, knowing what she had been telling her.

"Damn birds, always so mysterious. Speaking in riddles, mostly just to drive me crazy. Teach me some kind of lesson…" Spot grumbled at Laces left.

"Not everything is about you, Spot Conlon." Laces hissed at him as she reached out to grab hold of Jack.

"Or you Laces Kai." Jack laughed as he kissed her temple.

"Are you mad at me Laces?" Spot growled. Laces shrugged as she pressed her lips tightly together to keep from snapping at the old Brooklyn leader.

"Audrey," Critter motioned for her to follow him as he walked with Chesa towards the door.

"Haven't seen me in months and acting like some spoiled child. There will be a moment when Jack Kelly won't near and you and I will talk Laces." Spot sighed as he pushed off the table to find Buttercup Tate. Laces scrunched up her nose but let Jack softly guide her from the party, the last of its kind she would be seeing for a long time. If Audrey Kai had known how long it would be before she saw another gathering such as this, she might have savored those last few minutes but she never suspected how she would miss it.


	3. On the steps

It had been three months since the charming street girl, Laces, had turned into the elegant lady of society, Audrey. Four months ago Laces had watched the love of her young life and the only brother she had ever known leave the city of New York indefinitely. It had been almost six years since Audrey met Spot and Laces met Jack. Almost six years ago that the broken scandal torn child Audrey had turned into the mysteriously intoxicating young Laces. Audrey Alexander Kai had never had a peaceful life, at least not one she could remember.

But in this moment, under the pale fall moon that was almost visible in the city's night sky Laces felt an eerily sense of calm. She knew it was nearing midnight, a time she had learned to love in New York City maybe from the dreamer Jack Kelly or maybe from her countless nights on the rooftops of the lodging house. It was quieter on the back steps of the small garden of the Longfellow Estate near Fifth Avenue than it had ever been on Duane Street or in Brooklyn Heights. Casey Longfellow had gone to bed hours ago and Thomas Longfellow remained patiently awake waiting for his ward to find her way to bed. Laces could sense Thomas waiting for her, hovering near his study window carefully glancing out to assure himself she was still on the steps. He wouldn't impose or demand for her to come inside, not like Casey, Thomas would wait for her to be ready to come inside.

Laces pulled the ragged quilt she had tugged out with her around her shoulders, closed her eyes and leaned against the iron railing of the steps. She sat curled into her own torso and her arms tightly wrapped around her knees. She just needed a moment, a time of the day not at the wedding, a time when she was alone. She heaved in a deep, quivering breath and inhaled the recognizable scent of power and cockiness with just the slightest hint of trepidation.

"Conlon." Laces sighed without opening her eyes. She could feel the warmth of Spot Conlon standing behind her, his knees close enough to her ear to hit her shoulder if he decided to bounce up and down. Without opening her eyes, Laces knew Spot was shuffling his feet as she listened to the grinding of tiny stones from the brick against his wood soles. A smile crept to her dimple her right cheek as she counted down to the coughing she knew Spot would resort to next.

Spot Conlon did dramatically cough as he looked down at Laces. The young woman didn't open her eyes though, not even for the cough. She merely leaned her head further into the iron railing and tilted her chin up. In the moonlight, if Spot Conlon didn't know better he might have believed Audrey Alexander Kai was at peace.

"What you doing out here?' Spot finally asked. He settled down to sit next to Laces, close enough that Audrey could feel his elbow rise to light the cigarette hanging from his mouth. Laces opened her eyes, blinking as the smoke from Spot's cigarette hit her eyes.

"Thinking." Laces smiled at the wrinkles that formed on Spot's forehead. Spot had never been one much for thinking or even dreaming that was always something best left to others.

"Thinking about what?" Spot asked wearily of her answer before hearing it. Laces pressed her left palm into her left cheek, letting the warmth spread on her rapidly cooling face. Spot noticed the movement and held out his cigarette for her as he scooted closer to her.

"Just thinking." Laces instinctively took the cigarette and pressed it between her two thumbs, letting the heat of the tiny bud radiate into her hands.

"About who?" Spot tried to suppress his scoffing.

"What is the west like?" Laces lifted her chin and looked up at the moon. Spot rolled his eyes as he carefully tucked the quilt tighter around Laces shoulders and snatched back his cigarette.

"Empty." Spot responded. Laces smiled, she hadn't expected Spot to describe the majestic nature of the west as Jack might.

"Empty?" Laces pushed her chin into her chest. The swinging of her chin pulled the chain around her neck and Spot caught sight of a sparkling key.

"You want to be talking to Jack?" Spot frowned at the key dangling on her neck.

"We never talked much, Spot." Laces whispered letting her right hand dance up to clutch the key.

"Of course we did." Spot flicked the last bit of his cigarette out into the Longfellow garden.

"Why do you think I want to be talking to Jack?"

"Being out west has always been about Kelly." Spot shrugged.

"Are you happy?" Laces wondered.

"Life isn't about being happy Laces." Spot smiled.

"What is life about then mighty Brooklyn?"

"Surviving and maybe… just maybe smiling once and a while." Spot shrugged as a broad cocky smile graced his face.

"Throwing a good punch." Laces sighed through a stifled yawn. Spot twitched and pulled out another cigarette as he ignored the anxious fidgeting of the girl next to him.

Laces was impatiently studying him in the moonlight. Spot Conlon was no longer the boy king though traces of the Brooklyn swagger remained. Though still actively refusing to be called by his birth name of Patrick, Spot Conlon was now a man. The West had not bronzed Spot as it had Jack, but Laces had always known Conlon to be the more temperate of the two. But there was more color in Spot's light skin tone and his hair had grown lighter and longer. His shoulders were no longer as square and he didn't automatically clench his jaw as if holding all his anger back by gritting his teeth. Spot Conlon had relaxed just slightly, not enough that anyone without a trained pair of eyes would notice. But Laces had noticed. She knew exactly how his posture had changed.

"You changed too, you know." Spot finally spat out harshly. His blue flickered with the usual impatience and annoyance at having to explain himself to anyone. Laces smiled at him and in over dramatic slow motion rested her head against his shoulder.

"How?" She prompted him.

"This…" Spot's fingers pulled at the tied up strands of her hair. "Always done now?'

"A proper lady doesn't even walk around the home without her hair done up." Laces giggled.

"Your cheeks are rounder." Spot continued.

"Think I've gotten heavier?"

"Think you've had three square meals a day for a regular period." Spot responded sternly giving the girl a warning to keep up the habit if she knew what was good for her.

Spot didn't finish explaining the differences he saw in her. Instead he let his hand rest on her properly straightened back. He felt Laces let her body relax becoming heavier on his shoulder as she fought with sleep.

"You can't let how much you miss us affect you this much Audrey." Spot whispered. He felt how her shoulder popped, her shock and displeasure with Spot being a physical reaction.

"Would you have taken Fiona with you?" Laces whispered. It was Spot's turn to let his body react to his shock, his wrist flicked inward as if preparing his hand for a fistfight but instead it pulled Laces grimly closer.

"Yes." He responded automatically, instantly. He had anticipated the fight from Laces to get away from him. His hold on her was strong and held her in place despite her struggles.

"Stop that." Spot growled at her.

"You would have taken Fiona, but you leave me behind…" Laces reproached. Spot ran his thumb back and forth on the bare skin above Laces' elbow.

"You are better loved than Fiona. You find protectors everywhere. You are well here." Spot whispered to her trying to soothe and make her understand her reality.

"I am not better here." Laces fought the tears that were starting to prick behind her eyes.

"Maybe not. But you are well. Taken care of skirts, schooling… three square meals a day." Spot repeated.

"You would have taken Fiona." Laces fought the tears now streaming down her face as she yawned again.

"I use to be more selfish." Spot whispered and then Laces fell. She choked out a sob as she slammed her shoulder into the stone steps.

"Audrey?"

Laces pulled the quilt around her tighter and pushed her knees into her stomach. No one said her name again until a pair of strong arms picked her up easily, expertly from the ground and carried her into the light of the house.

"Audrey," The whisper was forceful but calm.

"Spot, you can put me down." Laces gurgled through a sleep sob.

"You are burning up." He chastised.

"Spot, put me down. Where is Jack?" She asked clutching to his shirt.

"Baby doll, Spot and Jack aren't here." Thomas Longfellow stated worried.

"We haven't really been here all day Laces, but you know that." Jack laughed somewhere in the distance. It was a carefree laugh, the kind Laces remembered from the nights in Manhattan when Racetrack was running a poker game and Snipeshooter was playfully hiding Race's favorite cigar.

"You've been imaging us all day." Spot added more seriously.

"Get the doctor." Thomas was directing someone as Laces felt him ascend up the stairs.

"Jack…" Laces croaked.

"He's in New Mexico. We got a post card this morning, him and Spot are well." Thomas tried to explain.

Thomas pushed open the doors of the room that was designated as Audrey's in the mansion of the city. He stormed through his own house to get the girl upstairs and the maids trailed behind him anxiously. Thomas was calmly commanding the servants around him, getting one of their expert hands to undress the girl as he directed for cold compresses. In the fury of movements, Cricket instinctively reached for a window cracked it open and whistled out a little tune.

"They will take care of you." Spot's voice rang in her head.

"And we'll come back." Jack promised. Laces closed her eyes as Thomas' rough hands pressed a cold compress onto her forehead.


	4. Bed Rest

It was early enough that she should have been able to hear the morning headline through the icy pane of glass. But even as she gingerly pressed her flushed cheek against the chilled glass, no sound reached her ear from the street. No young businessman would sell his papers near Fifth Avenue. It was never worth the hassle and hardly ever made enough pennies to justify the walk. The glass was starting to warm underneath her cheek but it was the ear not pressed against the window that heard murmured voices.

Audrey recognized the calmly warm tone of Thomas Longfellow placating the gravely annoyed voice of Christopher O'Connell. She pressed her eyes closed, working to focus just on the sounds outside. Audrey began to imagine the shouting, the cocky yet charming drawl of Jack Kelly hollering about some political scandal. She knew she was imagining his voice, pretending to know the headline was the same as improving them. But she couldn't ignore the voices just outside her bedroom door.

"What did the doctor say?" Critter was demanding.

"Doctor Watson suggested my entire household might be prone to nervous overreaction." Thomas sighed.

"What does that mean?" Critter's voice was rising and Audrey could hear him clearly even through the oak door and her imagination.

"Due to Casey's delicate condition, well…" Thomas was mumbling enough to cause Audrey to push face away from the window.

"What did he say about the girl?" Critter prompted. Audrey squinted her eyes madly at the closed door, letting wrinkles frown in between her eyes.

"Over excitement. Dr. Watson believes she was just over excited, not running a fever. I explained she has been having trouble sleeping and does have the occasional fainting spell." Thomas explained.

"She's been having trouble sleeping?" Critter barked. Audrey rolled her eyes as she pushed her cheek back onto the window, flinching at the renewed chill.

The men stood talking outside the door for at least another three echoing headlines before the brass doorknob began to jingle. Audrey inhaled deeply once before sprinting across the room on her toes and jumping back into bed.

"Dr. Watson has insisted she remain in bed for at least three days, in case she is actually ill. But he believes it is just a case of a young girl being over excited." Thomas whispered as he pushed the door open and stepped into the room.

"And the imaginings?" Critter's hoarse whisper barely managed to sound like a question. Audrey pressed her eyes closed again and tried to relax her body enough to appear as if she was sleeping.

"You once imagined people too." Thomas words were only audible to Audrey because he stood next to her bed. She fought her desire to pop open her eyes and study Thomas Longfellow to give meaning to his words beyond just the words.

"You were ordered to stay in bed." Critter spoke normally, no longer trying to whisper. Callous fingers wrapped around her wrist and Audrey felt the blankets tightened around as Critter sat down.

"I am in bed." Audrey stated calmly without opening her eyes.

"But you weren't a moment ago." Thomas sighed noticing the imprint of a cheek on the window.

Blinking her eyes open, a smile played upon Audrey's pale lips. She didn't look at Critter, the man who was pressing his thumb against her wrist trying to gauge some unknown quantifiable sign of her good health. Instead the young lady glanced up, innocently at her guardian.

"What delicate condition is Casey in?"

A laugh escaped Critter before he dropped her wrist, satisfied in her condition immediately.

"We shall discuss it in three days, after you have had your doctor recommend rest." Thomas shook his head. He reached out and pressed the back of his hand against her forehead.

"I am not running a fever." Audrey tried to slap his hand away without success.

"You are flushed again." Thomas pointed out.

"From having her face pressed against the morning window." Cricket pointed to the window again.

"Am I going to have to leave a maid to watch you, like an infant?" Thomas glared at the girl. Audrey shook her head.

"I don't need to stay in this bed, Dr. Watson doesn't even believe anything is wrong with me." Audrey argued.

"Aside from overexcitement. Some rest would do you some good." Critter stated seriously.

"But…" Audrey began.

"Ah, strength. You and Mrs. Longfellow are to go shopping in three days time for the fall fashions." Thomas held up his hand not allowing for any more argument.

"I don't require any more fashion." Audrey shook her head.

"You are required to do whatever you are told to do." Critter snapped his fingers.

"Doing whatever I am told would have led me to die on the streets long ago." Audrey snapped crossed her arms protectively over her torso. A low growl came from Critter but before the man could reproach the girl, Nancy the maid came rushing into the room with a breakfast tray.

"Mister Thomas, ma'am is asking for you and reminding you that you have a business meeting." Nancy announced. Thomas glanced at Audrey, worry sparkling in his light brown eyes. Critter tilted his head and waved his hand ever so slightly and Thomas gave a curt nod. Audrey rolled her eyes as Thomas leaned forward and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

"Stay in bed." He commanded. Thomas winked at Nancy as she settled the tray of food in front of Audrey. Thomas slipped out as quietly as he had entered leaving Audrey with his gruffer counterpart.

"Gave Mr. Thomas quite a scare last night Miss Audrey." Nancy started fussing about the room, opening windows and draping lace curtains.

"Is it because of Casey's condition…" Audrey began.

"Ah poor Mrs. Casey…"

"…Nancy." Critter shook his head. Nancy blushed genuinely and mumbled off the rest of her concern. Audrey audible sighed as she began to slowly push the tray of food away from her.

"Nancy, did you maybe get the paper this morning?" Audrey smiled innocently still pushing the tray away. Critter frowned and reached out and stuck the spoon into the oatmeal.

"You know we only get Mr. Thomas a morning paper, miss and he hasn't read it yet this morning…" Nancy began. Critter had left the spoon sticking straight up in the oatmeal waiting for Audrey to begin eating.

"If he doesn't take it…." Audrey started a regular conversation of the Longfellow Estate since she had arrived. The servants all collected the morning, afternoon and evening editions of papers for the young ward of their household, though usually secretly.

"Audrey, eat." Critter commanded as he glanced up at Nancy with a smile. The maid shook her head at the girl before she also ducked out of the room.

"What delicate condition is Southie in?" Audrey whispered as she pushed the spoon around the oatmeal but didn't lift it.

"What delicate condition are you in?" Critter countered with a sigh. Over the last two years the man had learned to have the patience of a saint, in his opinion, when dealing with the young Kai.

"The overexcitement of any girl coming home from the summer on the shore…" Audrey faked a swoon while expertly pushing her tray of food away.

Critter leaned forward and pulled a spoon full of oatmeal out of the bowl. He pushed the spoon directly at Audrey's face, letting his arched dark eyebrows do all his argument. She sucked her lips in and shook her head but was easily defeated when a low growl escaped Critter.

"Good girl." He sighed as she allowed the spoon to invade her mouth. She reached out and took the spoon for herself but didn't make any quick movements to add more food. Instead Audrey held tight to the now empty spoon as she left it drop to her side.

"Crit?" She ventured once she had swallowed the oatmeal. Audrey's eyes were focused. She was studying the man sitting next to her so carefully that Critter wondered what was on the girl's mind.

"Hm?" He prompted her, staring at the empty spoon.

"Who did you use to imagine?"

Critter O'Connell was rarely caught off guard in his life, but his experience gaze startled off the spoon and his golden irises practically bounced up to Audrey's face. Laces tried not to smile at the confusion that hit Critter. Confusion settled over the man like a splash from a fountain of youth. His eyes bounced with a youthful glitter and even his near perfectly combed hair seemed to fall out of place.

"You shouldn't eavesdrop it is not polite." Critter tried to state without smiling at his own hypocrisy.

"You taught me to eavesdrop." She snapped with a smile.

"You heard it from the window?" Critter asked sweeping the length of the room. Audrey nodded.

"Impressive. Maybe we should have let you be a bird," Critter muttered more to himself.

"Birds don't exist, whispers of the wind really just imagings …" Audrey's eyes naturally looked up, searching the fancy high beams of the room for shadows.

"Were you seeing Jack and Spot?" Critter asked.

"And David. Imaging them, they should have been there." Audrey reproached Critter ever so slightly. He heard the tone and knew she blamed him for the lack of appearance of the boys. She had convinced herself that Jack Kelly and Spot Conlon would be returned to their home by the mighty Critter for the event of Spades and Blue's wedding.

"You know they were not here?"

"They are in New Mexico."

"Yes." Critter nodded and tapped on the tray of food in front of Audrey, encouraging her to take another bite. She shook her head.

"Audrey," He sighed.

"I will eat if you tell me who you use to imagine." She bargained.

"The whole bowl?" He prompted.

"The whole tale?" She frowned. He nodded and pointed at the bowl.

"I use to imagine a girl, a girl who died." Critter scratched the back of his head impatiently.

"The bird?" Audrey question. Critter just nodded waiting for her to eat more.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Sorry for the delay, I know I posted the last one fast and this one slowly... I was trying to figure out what I really wanted to reveal here. Also I wanted to explain a little bit of what Laces was doing in the first three sections, imaging people who weren't there but not because she was crazy or even that sick... just because that's what a heartbroken girl might do sometimes. I hope the next section doesn't take me as long to post. Cheers!<br>_


	5. Silver City, New Mexico

_Silver City, New Mexico_

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><p>The sun was blazing down on the desert land of New Mexico with a stinging heat that Jack Kelly had to focus to ignore. The brim of a worn hat cast just enough of a shadow on his face to keep the light from blinding him. He was starring down at what he could only surmise use to be the main street of Silver City, New Mexico. Despite the oddity of the street having sunk down almost two levels, the scene was almost familiar to a man that had spent many afternoons in Five Points and Lower East side.<p>

The destruction of several floods had torn up the storefronts and the chasm that once was Main Street was filled with lingering pools of water, piles of forgotten trash and broken parts of nature. Jack stared at a tree stump, finding it the only part of the scene that reminded him of his surroundings. Just one breath of the crisp fresh air and Jack would remember he was in a town out west and not in an over crowded section of a city his heart wouldn't quit aching over. Jack snapped his fingers impatiently chastising his mind for wandering into memories of New York.

"Paper, mister?" A boy with curly hair and a look of discontent shoved a paper up at Jack. Jack cocked an eyebrow in shock at the boy but didn't move to push the paper away from his chin.

"A newspaper?" Jack asked biting back his desire to curse the boy, his paper and all the memories stirring to hell.

"Yeah, can't you see it?" The boy replied cheekily. Jack frowned swinging his arm up and pushing the hat up to let the boy clearly see his face. Since the second week as the leader of Duane Lodging House Newsboys in Manhattan, Jack Kelly had a habit of making sure others could see his displeasure with their actions clearly without the obstruction of his hats.

"I can see the paper in my face just fine kid, but if you're trying to sell it to me you're doing a scab dumb job of it." Jack announced finally swiping the paper from the kid.

"Hey, you take it you buy it mister!" The boy snapped huffily holding out his pudgy hand for payment.

"I'll tell you what, I will buy it if you can tell me one of the headlines." Jack folded the paper like an expert, not even sparing a glance on it. Instead the man bent down on one knee and stared expectantly at the boy in front of him. The newsboy of New Mexico was better fed than the newsboy of the city. Jack could tell this boy lived with a family. A family that fed him well and that pushed him out the door to sell newspapers to keep him from getting into mischief in the kitchen. Jack smiled when he noticed the boy reminded me somewhat of David Jacobs, a younger less ambitious David but still the same type of family boy.

"That's what you got the paper for. Read the headlines yourself." The boy scoffed. Jack shook his head.

"How do I know if I want to buy it, if you don't even tell me what's in it?" Jack asked patiently. Jack had taught countless boys had to be proper newsies. It was second nature for the man to be having this conversation with a ten year old.

"I suppose you don't." The boy shrugged uncomfortable at being spoken to by an adult. Jack smiled as he watched the boy squirm, shifting his eye focus to the ground and fidgeting with his hands. This boy was use to be lectured, chastised for most of his actions.

"Newsies are suppose to sell papers, by letting people know what the headlines are. Let's try this again..." Jack sighed as he held out the paper to the boy.

"Are you going to buy a paper?" The boy asked suspiciously.

"If you're going to sell it to me." Jack countered waiting for his headline. The young boy grudgingly unfolded the newspaper with his clumsy hands. Jack noticed David walking around the corner about a half a city block if Jack were to estimate.

"City's Mainstreet is flooded." The boy coughed out the headline unenthusiastically. Jack snapped his eyes down to the child and frowned before glancing over at the destruction of Mainstreet.

"Yeah, I can see that for myself." Jack grumbled.

"It's on the front page." The boy pointed to the main article of the thin paper. Jack rolled his eyes. Silver City, New Mexico didn't have newspapers like New York City, New York.

"All right, here." Jack dropped the penny into the upturn hand as he took the paper without a glance at the headline. The newsboy ran before the strange man could lecture him anymore or demand anything else from him. Jack shook his head as he flipped past the first page and read his newspaper.

"Torturing the local newsies?" David mocked as he reached his friend.

"Kid wasn't even shouting the headlines." Jack grumbled.

"Is there more than one headline in this town?" David questioned as he glanced over his friend's arm to view the paper. Jack shoved his friend playfully as he handed over the paper.

"Can we get on to Santa Fe?" Jack asked wistfully looking out to the horizon of the desert.

"There is a lot of work here Jack," David reminded his friend. David had been the one to convince the once all-powerful leaders of Manhattan and Brooklyn to change their destined course. He had heard of the floods of Silver City, a problem they have been having for years the most recent storm hitting in August. But more importantly David had heard that there would be enough work for over a dozen men to rebuild storefronts and patch up Mainstreet again. After some persuasion Jack and Spot had agreed Santa Fe could wait another few months, as they had heard of no work in that city. Jack had waited for Santa Fe for most of his life and a few more months wouldn't kill him. Besides the boys could use the steady income, as all three were trying to pinch every penny they could spare.

"We should find a place to stay." David suggested folding up the newspaper. Jack was starring up at the sky now, letting the sun beat onto his face with a reckless abandon that made Jack's skin also a shade or two darker than Spot's or David's.

"Jack?" David pressed inching to get to find a meal, a bed and work.

"The sun looks the same." Jack spat the words out with a hint of annoyance. David squinted his eyes and looked up at the sun.

"As it always does?" David offered up the information as he blinked quickly and dropped his gaze. How Jack could stare up at the brightness for as long as he did was beyond the levelheaded man of the bunch.

"Maybe brighter?" Jack stated hopefully dropping his gaze finally.

"Without the buildings, we can see how bright it is. In the city, we were always in the shades of the buildings… you know the World building was one of the tallest in the world." David started rambling. David Jacobs often talked about New York City, without the aching that colored the voices of Jack and Spot whenever they spoke of it. David didn't miss the city like his friends. He didn't miss the scent of rotting vegetables in the Lower East Side or the shrill cries of babies. Granted, he did miss the newspapers, the shouting of headlines, the delight of being with his friends and feeling like they were the masters of their own faiths despite their conditions. But David still experienced that thrill. He was after all roaming the West with the great Jack Kelly and the mighty Spot Conlon.

"I once told your sister the sun was different in New Mexico. Bigger…" Jack rambled as he started to lead the way to the entrance of the general store of Silver City.

"Knowing Sarah, she laughed and said it was the same sun…" David smiled sadly. The way Jack and Spot missed the city was the way David missed his family.

"Yeah, but you can't say it ain't bigger Davy." Jack pointed up at the sun. David laughed at Jack's insistency.

"It's the same sun Kelly," Spot growled stopping in front of the two men. Spot Conlon was calmer than he had been in days with a cigarette comfortably sitting in the edge of his mouth. He held out a pack of cigarettes to Jack, who readily took them and instantly pulled one out as well. It had been three days since the boys had run out of their last pack somewhere along the New Mexico border. Spot had already been irritable, missing his cousin's wedding was not something the man was particularly pleased about and he had made no attempt to hide his anxiousness.

"Didn't bother with food, but the presses stop rolling with Kelly and Conlon don't have their cigs." David grumbled as loudly as his stomach. Jack laughed as he lit his cigarette and threw his arm around his friend.

"I found us a place to sleep mouth, how about you show some gratitude." Spot flicked his cigarette.

"I think our pal Dave wants a meal not a place to sleep Conlon." Jack smiled.

"I think our pal Dave wants both." Spot chuckled as David opened his mouth to give his opinion only to find his friends had already said everything he was thinking.

"I got us free lodging." Spot grinned beaming with pride.

"It ain't like that town in Texas where we had to sleep in the wagons?" David almost whined.

"A bed is a bed." Spot pointed out. "But no, I got us a couple of beds above the general store. They take boarders every once in a while, and as long as we work to fix their store front first the shop keeper will let us board for free for two weeks." Spot explained.

"He noticed he'll make that back in cigarette sales?" David quipped. Spot popped his knee up and foot back, hitting David right below the knee on the left leg.

"You ain't going to be a walking mouth much longer…" Spot warned.

"Why don't we find some food?" Jack laughed.

The three men walked towards a small boarding house, where there was sure to be a meal for sale in the middle of the day.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: I am so sorry for the delay, when I actually got to writing this afternoon I finished this section fairly quickly. I just got fairly swamped and I apologize for the delay. I am going to try to write ahead over the next few days before I possibly get swamped again. But please let me know what you are all thinking! I have LOVED the feedback I have been getting on my old stories - also part of this series - it great's to know that people still care about all these characters and what is going on in their lives as much as I !<br>_


	6. No Rooftops

_No Rooftops..._

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><p><em>Author's Note: Due to the dry spell, I am going to be posting this section and one more before the week's end!<br>_

* * *

><p>Even candlelight flickered peacefully in the vastness of the west and in the quiet darkness of the night a city boy might believe the flames crackled loudly. Spot Conlon laid rigidly still in a tiny cot against the wall, in a room that was cramp enough to remind him of home. His eyes were closed and he was pretending to sleep but anyone who knew the man would know Spot Conlon was restless in his stillness. The burning candle distracted him from sleep as the light danced upon his closed eyelids. He could feel the heavy breathing of Jack Kelly not more than three feet away from him.<p>

Spot was itching to smoke, calm his nerves enough to sleep. But he couldn't smoke inside this tiny room, the store keeper's wife would throw him out so fast it'd remind him of a swift kick from Critter O'Connell himself. For the third time in one evening Spot cursed the western landscape for it's stout buildings without fire escapes and no access to the rooftops. It was a strange thing to miss, rooftops but Spot Conlon itched for the familiarity of standing atop a building. A place above everything else, a place where he could look down upon a city and smoke to his heart content. Spot's hand twitched and he huffed out a loud sigh.

"We could open the window." Jack whispered. Spot let his eyes pop open enough to glare at the back of Jack Kelly's head. After living an entire lifetime with one another, it was hard not to be completely aware of each other's tendencies.

"You making your own flicker picture over there with that infernal candle?" Spot demanded in a harsh whisper. The way Jack's shoulders popped let Spot know the other man was laughing at his annoyance. Only Kelly ever laughed at Spot Conlon, well Kelly and a particular Kai.

"I never thought about how often I escaped up to the roof, to think." Jack shrugged before turning around to stare at his oldest friend.

David Jacobs stifled a half snore before throwing his arm over the side of his cot. David was the only one of the three of them that ever slept peacefully, a byproduct of not growing up on the streets. Jack and Spot could never shake the need to sleep with one eye open and the readiness to run at a moment's notice.

"Why don't you get into bed, close your eyes and pretend to be on the rooftops Kelly." Spot sighed annoyed he had to give such ridiculous advice.

"Trying to write a letter." Jack shrugged sheepishly.

"Do you think they missed us at the wedding?" Spot asked careful to stare at the ceiling and not at the distorted hope on Jack's face.

"Yes." Jack nodded turning away from Spot again. They were never ones to need to have heart to heart discussions facing each other. It was easier to protect themselves from potential threats if they were looking away from each other when speaking.

"You know, Critter might not be letting her get your letters." Spot commented nonchalantly. It was am attempt to make his friend feel better about the lack of communication from the girl that held his heart. In the four months since they had left New York, Jack had written Laces a letter every two weeks. He had received only two in return. Two shared letters to him and Spot. It was easy to blame the few letters on the lack of a permanent location as the longest place the men had stayed was in the town on the border of New Mexico and Oklahoma. Both letters Laces had sent arrived in the small town where Jack Kelly had left a broken-hearted schoolgirl with a crush behind. Adding to his sense of villainous, it had been Samantha Timbers who had forwarded his second letter from Laces to the tiny train stop in Texas where the men had stopped for two weeks.

"That's why I send them to different people." Jack sighed knowingly. Jack was well aware of Critter O'Connell's methods and had anticipated his communications being blocked. He sent letters to several friends throughout the city. Sometimes to Racetrack Higgins at Irving Hall, other times to Skittery at the Hudson Theater, or still other times to Peach in Midtown. Rarely did Jack address a letter to the same place. Fortunately he still had many friends. Old acquaintances would find ways to deliver his letters. There was no doubt his thoughts would reach the hands of his girl.

"What have you been writing to her?" Spot rested his hand over his mouth, breathing through his fingers in an attempt to trick his mind into believing a cigarette laid between them.

"Just telling her what the west is like…" Jack started tapping the clunky pencil against the desk.

"Telling her a tale are you, Kelly?" Spot mocked.

"Sometimes I tell her it's nothing like Western Jim made me believe it would be." Jack defended.

"Don't want her to think you're too happy." Spot suggested.

"I am sure to tell her how grumpy you are about everything. Whine is all Conlon does." Jack playfully pretended to write down the phrase.

"You tell her we miss her?" Spot demanded.

"I tell her we'll come back sooner than she knows." Jack sighed, feeling guilty about his improving of the truth.

"Maybe all those dime novels were useful after all." Spot yawned.

"We are going to be here for at least a few months." Jack stated decisively.

"We will get to Santa Fe sooner than you know." Spot chuckled as he closed his eyes. There was silence again between the two men but the light still danced.

"Ask her to tell us about the wedding, and ask her if that idiot Matt has made sure Brooklyn is still the toughest." Spot grumbled before flipping around to have his back to the light. Not long after, the pencil scratching started and Spot found himself wishing Laces would be over her resentment enough to finally write them a proper response.

Jack began writing about his encounter with the newsboy of Silver City from the day before. Glancing up every other sentence to lament the lack of a rooftop escape again. Never once guessing how much he had in common with the lady of society Audrey Alexander Kai.


	7. A Brooklyn Bird

_A Brooklyn Bird..._

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><p>Bottle Cap struck a match up against the brick wall of The Walden. His forehead rested against the stone as he cupped his hand over the match and cigarette. With a kick of his heel, Bottle Cap's shoulders now rested where his forehead had been only seconds before. Puffing away at his cigarette, he rolled his dark eyes noticing the two figures beside him.<p>

"Nice girls don't let boys kiss them in the streets in broad daylight." Cap spat the words out trying to discourage his kissing friends.

"And working boys usual work in the middle of the afternoon." Slingshot grumbled a response back without surrendering the kissing.

"You're here too. Fearless leader of Brooklyn, I'm sure Spot never once skipped out on selling to see a show." Cam had pushed Slingshot away from her all of a sudden. A smile twitched at her lips but her eyes were reproaching both newsies for their bothersome comments.

"Oh he did." Cap laughed flicking the cigarette in his fingers before handing it over to Slingshot.

"Did he?" Slingshot asked intrigued to find out imperfections of his godlike predecessor.

"Not so much in the later years, but in the beginning. Actually we meet when he was coming out of a show. Him and Kelly both had a soft spot for the entertainment on cold afternoons." Cap rubbed his hands together.

"You think Laces can get us some extra coats? This winter might get too cold for my coat…" Slingshot started. The end of September was proving chillier than the newsboys were use to in the past. Not to mention the young leader of Brooklyn was starting to stretch. The only jacket Slingshot Kai even owned was beginning to make him look ridiculous, as the cuffs were practically hugging his elbows.

"I'm sure the mighty Spot Conlon didn't have a rich benefactor." Cammie rolled her eyes as she pushed her cloaked shoulder into Matt for warmth.

"You'd be surprised." Cap mumbled under his breath. Cap uncomfortably twitched to scratch his arm, over a coat that had been patched enough to survive the years it had spent with Spot Conlon.

"What was that?" Slingshot demanded of Cap. But Bottle Cap was well trained in the art of evasion and just shrugged and shook his head. A faint melody of whistles, soft and familiar came echoing down.

"A secret." Bottle Cap sighed looking over at the back of oblivious Slingshot. Slingshot didn't turn, didn't tense, didn't look up and definitely didn't skip a beat in his step. The whistling still had little affect on the young man. If it had been up to Slingshot, the birds of Brooklyn would take to getting his attention in very overt way. He hated the signals and the clues, the whistling in particular seemed a rather cumbersome process to the young man.

Bottle Cap shook his head but sucked at his teeth a moment listening to the faint twittering. It was the melody. The oldest of its kind and instantly Bottle Cap knew the news was about someone no longer in his world. Cap watched Slingshot trot along out of sight and the second in command suddenly let a wide grin overtake his face and a chuckle escape him. Cap ducked into one of the nearest building, appearing as if that had always been his planned destination.

Only three flights of stairs up, Cap found a girl with vivid red curls pressed against a window covered in soot. She was curled into her chest and dramatically snored to ensure anyone who passed would believe her asleep. But Bottle Cap knew how to spot a Brooklyn Bird, even if they weren't a familiar face. Maybe it was because the children spies of the city had an air about them, a streak of confidence that poured into the air around them. Or maybe it was how they always seem to carry a bit of the nest around with them, strings and bits hanging from their outfits in a way that was inexplicably bird like. Whatever the indicator was, Bottle Cap knew that the girl sitting on top of a barrel of strong scented moonshine had to be a bird.

He clicked his tongue against his cheek making the tiniest noise he could imagine. The girl barely jumped; barely let her eyes open wider than a single edition of the afternoon Journal. Cap smiled and pressed his lips together letting out the words he had learned before learning how to shout a headline.

"I have a secret." Cap provided quietly. The red curls burst with life, eyes popped open and a pink color suddenly flushed the girl's high cheekbones.

"Doubt it's something I don't already know." Firecracker snapped her fingers a few times before spitting on her thumb and cleaning off the dirt from her face.

"See a lot sleeping up here on the third floor of this estate?" Cap mocked. He knew that she probably did, birds were strange creatures to Bottle Cap.

"It ain't just about what you can see, a lot is about what you can hear." Firecracker winked and tilted her head to the right.

"Were you the one whistling for me?"

"I would think we were whistling for the leader of Brooklyn," The mockery was subtle and respectable even, but Cap noticed the hint of absurdity that the bird used in her tone.

"He didn't hear it. Sooner or later he'll get it." Cap shrugged.

"Or he doesn't care for this signal as much as you might?" Firecracker asked avoiding eye contact by fidgeting with a bit of rope that she started to expertly wrap around her hair.

"Is it about Laces?" Cap frowned suspiciously. The old birds song was only used these days for news about Laces, Spot, Jack, Critter or any of the classic characters of the city tales.

"There's going to be a hatchling…" Firecracker giggled at her own wit.

"What?" Cap's voice went up an octave and the steady ground suddenly moved underneath the boy.

"Of the southern cricket variety." Firecracker frowned at the Cap not moving from her perch. Cap ran his hand across his face, as suddenly he understood Slingshot's desire to ring a bird's neck. Always talking in riddles, a bunch of mouths and smart responses.

"South then?"

Firecracker nodded.

"And she's taking it well?" Cap snapped impatiently.

"Southie's got that glow of motherhood." Firecracker grinned closing her eyes once again. She started scrunching down into her curled up position once again.

"And Laces?" Cap growled.

"Tickled." Firecracker yawned. The bird's face was pressed against the soot again and Bottle Cap knew that the girl was done divulging any type of information at all. Cap swung one leg around the other and spun himself around, taking off in a sprint that was almost worthy of the birds.

It had been a conversation short enough to be in one of the flicker pictures Snipeshooter liked so much. With enough speed, Bottle Cap would be behind Slingshot and Cammie before his leader even noticed that he was gone. Not that the newsboy was hoping for lax skills of observation from his leader, he wanted Slingshot to be annoyed that Cap had disappeared. Annoyance meant Slingshot had noticed, that his attention was on high alert. Then maybe Bottle Cap could stop spending his every waking moment with the newest boy king. Matthew Kai had yet to learn to watch his own back as carefully as he should.

Maybe it was the sound of stones turning into dirt, or the way Cap's heel slip and sent his knee clumsily into a solid object with a thump. Whatever it was that gave away his presence, Slingshot reacted as only a leader of Brooklyn ever could. His hand at his back pocket and his aim ready to hit whoever was coming up behind him with enough force to burst at least enough blood vessels to develop a great shiner.

Slingshot was fast, instant almost but Cap had grown up in Brooklyn. Inhale the very paranoia that now pumped in Slingshot and his hands acted of their own accord. The marbles, two very good shooters, went to waste as they smacked into each other in the air and flung off in opposite directions off the Brooklyn Bridge.

"What'd they have to say?" Slingshot glared at Bottle Cap. Cap had one knee against the bridge, as if he had actually fallen and still managed to have perfect aim.

"Noticed then?" Cap rolled his eyes to annoyed about losing a shooter to be proud of Matt.

"Why is it that you talk to my birds more than I do?" Slingshot growled. On occasion the young leader of Brooklyn was struck by his relatively new status on the stage of the Brooklyn Empire. To prove his own importance, or strength, or something Slingshot refused to help Cap back up to his feet instead crossing his arms and waiting for Bottle Cap to regain his footing. Cammie tried to take a step forward to help the boy, her friend as much as Matt's second in command but Slingshot merely held out her hand to stop her.

"If you could remember the code, than maybe they would come to you when you called. Or if you even bothered to check in with them once in a while…" Cap chastised as he clapped the gravel off his palm.

"The Brooklyn Birds were made to provide information to the leader of Brooklyn." Slingshot stated.

"Not true, actually." A voice from nowhere giggled.

"Do you all really need to do that? Hide in the shadows like a ghost in the old city…" Cammie jumped. Filly didn't look over her shoulder but kept her eyes focused on the river below. She would not engage in an actual conversation with the leader of Brooklyn, but that didn't mean she could point out how grossly misinformed he was.

"What'd you mean not exactly?" Slingshot demanded. In the five months since Spot Conlon had been gone, Slingshot had taken time to learn the usual perches of the well-informed birds. Filly Ingles, a silent slightly awkward type with hair that eerily matched the colors of the ropes of the Brooklyn Bridge always sat somewhere on the connection to Manhattan. Filly never made eye contact and rarely divulged information with sarcastic remarks to bite into Slingshot's confidence. But Bottle Cap had assured the hotheaded leader of Brooklyn that hitting the girl would do him no good.

"Ah Matthew Kai, the world does not revolve around you… much like it didn't really revolve around Conlon himself." Filly puffed at a cigarette, covering her own face with smoke and crystallized breathing in the cold.

"Filly, shush up!" Another voice commanded.

"He should know…" Filly kicked at the stair step beneath her harshly.

"I'm going to tell Jasper…" A male voice squeaked. Cammie was the only one of the trio that tried to locate the last voice, the male voice. It was pointless; birds were either completely in your way or basically invisible.

"What do you mean?" Slingshot demanded.

"Jasper ain't half as bad as Critter…" Filly sighed.

"Jasper ain't half as bad as me!" Slingshot tapped his slingshot impatiently on the back of Filly's head.

"Don't anger the bird," Cap hissed as he whacked his leader's hand out of the air.

"I'm tried of this leader game. It's going to get colder…" Cammie snuggled more into Slingshot.

"Walk you're girl home, try not to get soaked on the way." Cap grumbled as he shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking. The trio walked the length of the bridge in a silence that was familiar, comfortable as the cold of the fall settled around them and darkness started creeping into the sky.

"Don't try to see her." Slingshot warned before they parted. The trio spilt as the bridge dumped them into a busy street in Manhattan. A few carriages were strolling along quickly as the white droplets of rain fell from the sky. One newsboy, Gamble stood at the farthest street corner bouncing on the heels of his feet as he attempted to discard the rest of his newspapers for the day. Cap didn't bid farewell to his leader or his leader's girl, instead he purposefully walked away from the young crowned prince of Brooklyn. It was a habit of Cap and Slingshot never to say farewell to each other, a habit that ensured that anyone that was watching or listening would realize that the boys were anything but sentimental. But more importantly to Cap, not saying farewell ensured that they would indeed have to see each other again. Cap had heard enough final farewells, to dislike the idea of good-byes at all even in death.

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><p><em>Author's Note: Three updates this week, this being the last. This week we're back to only one- leave reviews - they definitely inspire me to keep the story going. Almost like my own muse. Hope you all enjoy! <em>


	8. In Manhattan

_**October 1902 **_

"Let's go! The presses are rolling!" Kloppman's ancient voice never tired of the same phrases. Every morning, though the bunks might be littered with newer and younger faces, the song remained the same. The old man carried his weight heavily upon the wooden floors partially due to age and partially on purpose to wake the slumbering children.

"Let's go! Sand!" He hollered passing by the sandy haired boy. He smacked the bare foot covered in soot at the end of the bed, sending the young man into a sitting position.

"I didn't do it!" Sand shouted. Kloppman smiled. The song remained very much the same. Newsboys were forever carrying guilt, forever prepared to defend their innocence even in their sleep.

"Didn't do what, selling papers? Time to get up Sand." The old man urged the boy to get out of bed. Rubbing the sleep out of his ocean blue eyes forcefully the boy jumped down from his bunk in a swift movement. Sand trotted past several bunks only stopping at the bunk located in almost dead center of the room. He stretched out his arms far above his head, letting his body prepare before he climbed up to the top bunk. Holding his body up by wrapping his entire arm around the post, Sand used his other hand, clenched in a fist to bump against a sleeping Snipeshooter's shoulder. A set of curls grated against the pillow in agitation before a freckled nose turned to face the punching culprit.

"Whatdoyouwant?" A slur of words came out of Snipeshooter's mouth. Sand smiled running his tongue over his dry lips before speaking.

"We got some headlines about crooked politicians today." Sand laughed. The younger boy was mocking his leader, for Snipeshooter was notorious for hating headlines about politics at all these days.

"That ain't a headline." Snipes grumbled and tried to turn back around.

"Headlines don't sell papes." Boots grumbled as he walked past the two towards the washroom.

"Newsies sell papes. Damn it. Kelly haunts me even in my sleep." Snipes grumbled. He grudgingly swung his legs over the side of his bunk. Sand released the bedpost and let his body drop down with a loud thud. If it hadn't become routine for the little boy to climb up to wake Snipes, the drop would have shocked the bottom of his bare feet more but his small body had become accustom to the harsh landing.

"Maybe cause you're sleeping in his bunk?" Tumbler suggested walking out of the washroom snapping at his suspenders.

"It ain't his bunk anymore. It's mine." Snipes snapped at the chipper newsie. Tumbler shrugged an apology to Sand.

"I'm not saying it's cause you ain't the leader of Manhattan. Just maybe cause his spirits in the bed somehow? I was reading this real scary tale yesterday about ghosts…" Tumbler started trying to defend himself.

"Shut up." Two-Bit shoved his hand into the other boy's black hair playfully. Two-bit placed a cigarette at the edge of his mouth before placing his hat strategically upon his head.

Snipeshooter had wandered into the washroom already in a half dazed sleep completely ignoring the morning banter of his newsies around him. He washed and dressed in a completely daze to his actions and surroundings. Not until he had stepped out into the morning sunshine and chilly winter air did he truly wake.

The Manhattan newsies still took the same path to the selling docks every morning that their predecessors had taken. Snipes kicked at the mud underneath his worn out shoes as they walked past the brick walls that were the background to his existence for so many years. He was moody and hungry and the cold was not making it any better. Sand followed his leader like a shadow, never moving more than two steps away. The younger and shorter boy was alert and full of energy the perfect compliment to the hunched over disengaged morning person that Snipes tended to be. The nuns weren't out this morning likely because of the rain the night before, so Sand knew that it would be at least another few blocks before Snipes got into a better mood. The newsies would snatch various objects off the delivery wagons this morning. Something they hadn't often done under the direction of Jack Kelly but times had changed.

Not that Jack hadn't been a thief, he had been. Jack Kelly had been a good thief and a great liar, but his intentions were never anything but good and his loyalty won over each and every person that came across his path. Also just because he had been those things, didn't mean that he had ever encouraged or even allowed his boys to be thieves or liars. Snipes was still young, still inexperienced and still didn't care enough in the morning to be the leader that Jack Kelly had been before him. But, one day he might grow into the shoes that had been left for him to fill.

Fighting, the struggle to prove themselves and the bitterness of an early winter this year had made the Manhattan newsies a little less jovial than they had been previously. It was a cycle, though the boys themselves were unaware, times of prosperity often came before and after times of struggle. Snipeshooter might never realize that Jack Kelly had also struggled to be noticed and to matter in a world where who you were could save your life and earn you an extra penny.

A quiet had taken hold of the city, a silence that quivered with warning. No one was picketing, no one was campaigning, and no one was saving souls. The newsies barely made it out to scout headlines and even at that most were only selling twenty of each edition. But the quiet suited Snipeshooter just fine, gave him time to recover from the fights that secured his place as a leader. The silence of the city gave Snipes time to feel like maybe, maybe Jack Kelly would stay gone long enough for everything to go back to normal. Though the young leader was never sure what his desire for normal really meant anymore.

Arriving at Horace Greeley Square, Les Jacobs appeared in the square wearing a blue shirt that had once been David's and a grin of reckless abandoned that was less Jacobs and more Kelly. Les no longer carried a wooden sword or hid in the shadows of his older and wiser big brother. He had grown taller and lost the innocence from his face just as Snipeshooter had. The two boys had once equally idolized Jack Kelly and equally detested the fact that the missed the old newsboys leader. It was a weekday and Les Jacobs' should be in school during the morning edition, but none of the boys were surprised to see the youngest Jacobs. In the last weeks, Les had started skipping out on lessons in favor of making a few extra cents during the day. Not everyday, but everyone knew it would only be a matter of time before little Les wouldn't ever go back to lessons and books.

Les quietly walked up to stand near Snipeshooter at the selling gates. He pulled out a piece of bread and handed it over quietly knowing full well that the leader of Manhattan wouldn't speak before eating something. Snipeshooter grunted and nodded thanks as he ripped the roll in half and handed it to Sand.

"The headlines are weak again. Stupid storm." Grumbled a newer newsie named Humble.

"Headlines don't sell papes." Les preached to the younger boy. Snipeshooter shot him a murderous glare and Sand leaned over to whisper.

"He's a little touchy about Jack this morning." He warned.

"He don't even know who Jack is…" Les argued. He jutted out his chin before speaking to Humble again. "You know who Jack Kelly is?"

"Ain't he the one that rode around this square with Teddy Roosevelt after the strike? He was one of the strike leaders wasn't he?" Humble's face brightened with the enthusiasm of the story.

Sand laughed a bit and winked at the boy before waving his hand to signal the kid should scatter. Snipeshooter glared at Les, who was shrugging apologetically.

"All right, so maybe it's too soon for no one to know who he was. Want to hear how they're doing? We can't do anything about you not being Jack Kelly anyway. I mean if you really think about it Jack Kelly was barely Jack Kelly, his real name being Francis Sullivan and all…"

"Just tell us what Mouth wrote you, I think we should call you Mouth from now on." Snipeshooter rolled his eyes.

"That was what they called Dave though!" Les snapped indignant. Everyone had a shadow to get out from under.

"He's right there Snipes, we should really call him something different. I mean you want to be different don't you?" Sand nodded vigorously.

Somewhere from inside the selling docks they could hear the bells and the announcement that it was time for selling. The trio moved towards the docks in a fluid movement of a group that spent too much time together. Les having never lost his childish vigor for speaking up quickly gave updates about the old leaders.

Out of the three newsboys, only Les dared to purchase 50 papers to sell for the morning. Having learned everything from Jack Kelly himself, Les Jacobs was one of the best newsboys on the Manhattan side of the East River. The three boys walked out of the selling docks, Les still excitedly telling them whatever western adventure David had written about.

"Corpse found by the train yards!" Les shouted, joining the array of voices.

"A corpse?" A young man asked excitedly stepping off the sidewalk, in a blatant disregard for his suit and the mud of the streets. Les nodded vigorously keeping a serious set to his mouth and holding out the folded paper to the businessman.

"That's a good headline." The young man smiled brightly and the words echoed back in Les' mind as familiar.

"A good story mister," Les nodded pushing out the paper further to the man.

"A good story, she would like that then…" The young man dug out a nickel from his jacket pocket. He took the paper from the boy before dropping the glittering coin into his outstretched hand.

"I ain't got any change yet Mister, you're my first pape…" Les began to explain.

"No. No, no, keep the change boy." The tall gentleman winked mischievously as if Les had made his entire day by selling him an overpriced paper. Suddenly Les felt guilty for improving the headline the man seemed so interested in.

"Thanks." He said quickly before his conscience decided to kick in too much. He turned back to his companions and the man folded the paper into his jacket and out of sight. As if it wasn't even a morning paper he had purchased for himself.

"Corpse huh?" Snipeshooter asked as he was reading well into the middle of one of his own papers.

"It said one dead." Les nodded.

"A dog was dead." Sand laughed.

"That's a corpse, ain't it?" Les shrugged.

"Come on let's go down to central park today." Snipeshooter suggested leading the way.

"You know, Dave asked about Laces… I don't know what to tell them. I haven't seen her in at least a month." Les looked to Snipeshooter and Sand hopefully. Both boys shrugged and shook their heads. The boys of Manhattan liked Laces well enough but they no longer had a vested interest in her like Jack and the others once had. The emotional attachment only existed for Brooklyn now who still lived and fought for their precious gal. Laces was no longer the key between Brooklyn and Manhattan, she no longer possessed anything that fancied the mellower borough of the two. Even their third ally, Decker from the Bronx had more of an investment with Laces than the boys of Horace Greeley Square did these days.


	9. Welcome Visitor

_Welcome Visitor_

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><p>Afternoon dresses were one of the things Audrey Alexandra Kai was adding to her list of items in society to despise. She hooked her finger into the high collar that pressed up against her chin, trying desperately to be freed of the restricting annoyance. But no matter the strength Audrey put behind the tugging, the collar of the dress refused to stretch beyond the choking embrace. Blowing a frustrated breath over her own face, the young lady plopped with little manners and less delicacy onto one of the many steps of the grand staircase of the Longfellow estate. She swept up her skirts and easily started to undo her kid boots. If she couldn't escape one fashion prison, Audrey was determined to escape another.<p>

Being barefoot had become the latest indulgence of Miss Audrey Alexandra Kai, a freedom unlike any she had previously experienced. On the streets, in her beloved life as a newsies, Laces had never once been able to travel barefoot outside of the bunkroom in the lodging houses. Shoes had provided invaluable protection, security, and misunderstood luxury among the poorest of the poor in the life of carrying the banner. But inside the rich surroundings of Fifth Avenue, where floors were covered in nothing but riches from plush Turkish rugs to smooth marble stones bare feet were never in danger of anything but pure delight.

With the slip of a hand, only familiar to the pickpockets of New York City, Audrey suddenly had a folded piece of paper in her hands. Practically floating away from her abandoned boots, Audrey let her hands trace the folds of the unopened letter in her hands. She studied the colors of the heavy yellow paper, the streaks of unfamiliar dirt and the circular pattern of what appeared to be a thumbprint. She turned it in her hands, slowly at first and then faster, searching for the shades of gray and black that were so instinctually normal for Jack Kelly. But there was no trace of a newsboy on the folded paper; the folded paper was nothing like a newspaper, nothing like Jack Kelly. A stranger in disguise of something known for Audrey had recognized the slanted handwriting of Jack Kelly on the envelope addressed to Laces, for a second she had been convinced of familiarity. But the letter was nothing like a newspaper. It was nothing like everything she had once associated with Jack.

She turned it over in her hands a few more times, memorizing the way that Jack had folded it enough to imagine his hands delicately working over the creases. Standing at the bottom of the staircase, completely enthralled by the folded letter, Audrey began to carefully pull the letter open. A second piece of paper tumbled out of her hands as her fingers pulled down the last crease. Two whole pages of cramped writing, beautiful words colorfully weaving tales of adventure hiding the desperation of Jack Kelly begging Audrey to respond of Laces to remember. She ducked down to pick up the second page, letting her fingers dance around the edges of the paper as she studied the ugly yellow of the paper against the brightness of the white floor.

A knock at the door startled Audrey out of her reverence. She quickly snatched her letter from the floor and folded the papers back up perfectly without a pause. Without a thought to rules of society or proper manners, she opened the front door.

"Miss Audrey," A curiously amused voice greeted the young lady. Audrey blinked at the brightness of the afternoon sky, so unexpectedly attacking her eyes. A shade fell over her eyes and suddenly the young woman concentrated on the light blue shirt in front of her, under the fashionable gray afternoon coat. Upturning her face only centimeters, Audrey found the silent chuckling face of Jacob Henry Canterbury. Before any sense of propriety or appropriateness could settle in Audrey, the girl had flung her arms around the boy standing in front of her.

"Audrey," Jacob laughingly chastised as he carefully pushed her back into the mansion and himself off the highly visible steps off Fifth Avenue. At the push and the familiar voice of Jacob, Audrey seemed to remember her place and released him while stepping back a safe and proper distance from the young man.

"Miss Audrey, you didn't answer the door?" Nancy hurried past the two and closed the door.

"There was a knock." Audrey tilted her head curiously at her guest. Jacob smiled brightly, his dark eyes twinkling with their familiar mischief.

"She knew it was me." He provided to the maid playfully.

"Miss Audrey, if Mrs. Casey…" Nancy fretted for only a second before remembering the door had been open to company. "…Sir?"

"Sir Jacob Henry Canterbury, a dear friend of Miss Audrey's from the shore." The boy flashed a foolish grin at the maid.

"Tea, we should have tea…" Audrey stated unsure. She still clutched her folded letter in one hand.

"Yes, please follow me." Nancy turned to lead the young people into a parlor. Jacob held out his arm and Audrey instantly tucked her hand around it. Remembering her letter, she worked to tuck the papers underneath the sleeve encasing her right wrist so tightly.

"What's that?" Jacob whispered as he watched her try to force the bulk under the fabric.

"Nothing." Audrey shook her head, allowing a fake smile of confidence to appear upon her confused face. Jacob recognized the smile, the practiced response of any lady in his society to an uncomfortable question. He frowned at the unnatural way the expression rested on Audrey's face. But the young man was as well trained as his partner, if not better trained, and so he focused on anything but the paper still forcing it's way into hiding.

"Are you barefoot?" Jacob laughed as he caught sight of Audrey's stockings as she walked alongside him. Nancy spun around in alarm to confirm what Jacob had laughingly suggested.

"Miss Audrey!" She exclaimed.

"Nancy," Audrey mimicked back before adding, "I left them on the stairs."

"I'm not one for formalities, Nancy." Jacob winked at the maid and Nancy couldn't help but smile at the boy's boldness.

"I shall go fetch some tea, and your boots." Nancy sighed but as she walked out she whispered urgently to Audrey. "Do try to behave."

The door closed softly behind them before Jacob spoke again.

"How many people tell you to behave?" He wondered out loud as Audrey dropped his arm. Audrey shrugged and turned to stare at the young man now standing in the parlor with a frown.

"What are you doing in New York?" She demanded crossing her arms. Jacob chuckled again trying not to obviously study how the light of the late afternoon glittered around the young lady's delicate figure.

"Now you can't fib and say you aren't happy to see me." Jacob winked at her remembering the socially unacceptable hug.

"You didn't tell me you were coming in your last letter…" She reproached walking away from him to settle into a protective perch atop the back of the loveseat. After parting ways on the summer shore, Jacob Canterbury had waited exactly one week before sending his first letter from the library of Yale University to his newest friend. Since the first letter, the two young people hadn't been able to stop writing.

"Didn't know when I wrote last. Father couldn't make it out to the city to take care of some business, had me come down from school instead." Jacob explained apologetically.

"Or you are merely playing hooky and have fabricated some story to defend your wayward choices." Audrey smiled at him.

"Not all of us are as unable to behave properly." Jacob smirked as he walked across the room to lounge upon the French desk near the window. Audrey watched as the young man tucked his hand into his coat, thinking he would be pulling out his pocket watch momentarily. She had learned Jacob Henry had a nervous habit of playing with his fancy gold pocket watch. A twitch that reminded her of how Spot always lit a cigarette and Jack forever tugged at the ratty old string of his cowboy hat. All boys had their habits, rich or poor, energy had to be contained. But Jacob didn't pull out his watch but instead he pulled out a half folded morning edition of The World.

"The little waif that sold me this…" Jacob began but didn't finish his sentence before Audrey interrupted him.

"Don't call them waifs." She demanded angrily, protectively. Jacob quirked an eyebrow at the outburst confused yet again but instantly reacted to the annoyance.

"Well, they are waifs. Most of them…" Jacob explained confused.

"Are you a reformer now? Parading around pointing at all their defects instead of helping the kids of the street?" Audrey's dark brown eyes burned into the young man, her words stinging with their serious accusations.

"You are truly an extraordinary young lady," Jacob laughed holding up his hands. He had never known anyone else, man or woman in his tiny circle of the elite socialites that cared beyond talking about the working class. "…Not waifs then, the newsboy?"

Audrey nodded a satisfied smirk playing on her lips.

"The newsboy who sold me this paper assured me of the headline being a good story…" Jacob started pulling the paper open and flipped through the pages. "… Something about a nude corpse on the train tracks."

Audrey started giggling at the confused look on Jacob's face as he searched the paper for the selling headline. Few businessmen ever remembered the headline that sold them on their morning paper enough to remember a street kid had swindled them. But Jacob wasn't much like most businessmen. She slipped down from her perch and strode across the parlor with her hands out stretched for the paper.

"A good story…" Audrey slipped her hands expertly over the pages and Jacob surrendered the newspaper with a smile. Jacob had learned quickly through Audrey's letters of the young lady's quirky delight in New York's newspapers. He soon realized she actually read the papers, when she managed to procure a copy.

"Are you going to find the imaginary headline?" Jacob challenged. But Audrey wasn't paying any attention to the boy any longer, instead her fingers pressed against the ink lovingly as her eyes flittered across the pages.

"Here it is, page 9." Audrey smiled triumphantly as she held out the paper underneath Jacob's nose.

"Found dead dog near trolley track… No, no. The boy must have been talking about some other headline." Jacob shook his head.

"I doubt it." Audrey winked, pulling the newspaper back into her own bosom. She knew without Jacob explaining that he had brought her the newspaper. He had been intrigued by Audrey's love for newspapers and in his last letter had pushed for her to explain the dynamics of a good headline. He never dared asked how the young lady knew the information, knowing Audrey would never reveal it.

"Miss Elizabeth Samson wrote to Emma that you were ill…" Jacob stated nonchalantly as he reached out to rest his hand on her wrist.

"Miss Emma Canterbury wrote to Elizabeth that you might gallivant off to Europe for the winter." Audrey shrugged back still only staring at her newspaper.

For all of their ignoring of social graces, Audrey and Jacob still maintained a degree of secrecy in their communications. Both playing what outsiders would perceive as usual standards of courting between a young woman and young man. But in reality, Jacob had learned not to bore Audrey and Audrey had learned to protect herself by never sharing with Jacob. The two had settled onto the sofa, allowing their shoulders to touch as Audrey still read the paper and Jacob began clicking his pocket watch open and closed.

A soft knock alerted the young people to the arrival of Nancy. The maid entered pushing a teacart and looking oddly out of place with a pair of kid boots tied over her shoulder.

"Mrs. McCain is just about done with her visit." Nancy warned. The maid settled down on her knee to slip Audrey's boots back on.

"How long are you staying in the city?" Audrey asked, finally refolding the newspaper and tucking it underneath the book on the table in front of them.

"Until my 9 o'clock train this evening. Have to get back to school… But, I am going to be coming into the city more often." Jacob winked at her happily.

"For your father's business?"

"Yes, I am coming to an end of my formal education." Jacob nodded as he bent down to help Nancy tie up the boots. Nancy tried to keep the boy from helping, but it was futile as the maid gave up tying the shoes back up at all.

"And do you learn to tie kid boots up at the fancy university?" Audrey snickered at the boy bent over her knee.

"No, but I would imagine it's a skill taught at most finishing schools. Didn't you ever attend finishing school Miss Audrey?" Jacob mocked.

Audrey laughed as she noticed that Jacob Henry Canterbury had clumsy hands when compared to Thomas Longfellow or even Christopher O'Connell. Jacob was not a man who had learned how to lace up boots in the shadows of a secret life as a child spy.

"I could tie my own boots, I did untie them. Sir." Audrey pointed out. Jacob shook his head as he straightened back up accepting the cup of tea from Nancy. It had not escaped the young man's notice that Miss Audrey had laughed away yet another personal question concerning her mysterious past.

"Were you ill long?" Jacob ventured to ask as he promptly focused his attention on the window across the room. He knew Audrey wouldn't answer this question anymore than she would admit attendance to a finishing school.

"Where will you go in Europe?" Audrey snapped back. A hint of hurt and desperation coloring her tone in a way that made Jacob swing his head back around to stare at her.

"Maybe, I will put it wait until the summer. I hear the weather is much more enjoyable then?" Jacob lingered on the question. Mrs. Canterbury had suggested, as had all the ladies of the shore, that Audrey Alexandra Kai had been raised somewhere in Europe by some distant family but no one ever knew where or by whom.

"Didn't you go on a tour of England and France before going to Yale?" Audrey jumped to her feet, as if an electric shock had flung her into action. Jacob frowned. It had been almost five weeks, a little over a month since he had seen Audrey and she appeared to be out of sorts with his presence. He knew from the way she rubbed her right wrist with her thumb that she was distracted by whatever letter she had tucked into her sleeve. But she could not deny her excitement to see him, as her hug had proved nothing but sheer delight. Nonetheless, she was being disturbingly formal and aloof compared to her usual self.

Jacob bit down on his lower lip and sucked the honey sticking to the inside of his teacup. He nodded his response to Audrey's question of his previous tour of Europe as he thought about how to put the girl at ease again. The sound of horse hooves pounding against the cobbled streets outside sparked inspiration as he popped half a smile and dropped his teacup onto the table on top of the newspaper.

"Have you seen the new horseless carriages?" He asked as he confidently strutted towards the window.

"Yes, a few. Near the shops that Casey likes to frequent."

"My pal Frank, Franklin Escher from Brooklyn… maybe you know him? He is in my class at Yale… well his pop got one of those horseless carriages and we've been talking about riding around in it one of these weekends." Jacob rambled like an excited schoolboy, which was what he actually was at the moment.

"What kind is it?" Audrey asked intrigued. Jacob smiled widely, letting dimples form in his well rounded cheeks.

"A Thomas Touring, real beauty from what Frank tells me."

"And he's going to let a fool like you have a go at it?" Audrey mocked the light of amusement so familiar to Jacob reigniting in her eyes.

"I'm sure, I could convince Frank to let a troublesome young lady like you to have a go at it too…" Jacob pressed his finger to chin pretending to think the idea over.

"If it proves to be like horse riding, I might put money on my driving it better than you." Audrey smiled.

"You talked that horse against me!" Jacob complained.

"I did no such thing, besides why would I spend my time talking to a horse when you never went away…"

"… You have bewitching ways about you Miss Audrey…"

"Or you just can not ride a horse." Audrey suggested more realistically. Jacob pulled at his pocket watch, trying to ignore the nagging feeling of time slipping away as the light outside diminished into darkness. Finally as the laughter died out in both of them, he clicked his timepiece open.

"You'll be back soon?" Audrey barely spoke at a whisper.

"Maybe in a horseless carriage. You'll write?" Jacob reached out to retrieve the paper he had brought.

"Isn't it my pape…r?" Audrey forced herself to add the last letter of the word.

"What if I hadn't finished it?" Jacob questioned.

"Learn to read faster college man." Audrey shrugged as she snatched the paper back from his hands. Jacob laughed as he began leaving the room, without any more dismissal or farewell.

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><p><em>Author's Note: Sorry for the delay, there might be more delays for the next two months. And for that I apologize but you know... I will post when I can. Happy 20th Anniversary to Newsies the movie! Let me know what you think of what is going on my extended world of the newsboys who captured our hearts. <em>


	10. Hudson Theater

_The Hudson Theater_

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><p>She could feel her own nails digging deep into her palms as she focused all of her energy on breathing naturally. Even with her attention completely fixated on the one patch of the stage where she could see the shadow of a stagehand, Laces could feel all the wandering eyes on her.<p>

The Opera was about being seen, a place to establish notoriety amongst the rich and even richer. Audrey Kai was posed perfectly in a balcony sitting close enough to the edge as if she were a display at one of the shops on Ladies Mile. For a young lady that had spent her life learning how to disappear from sight and dissolve into the shadows of others, being so highly visible was torture. It wasn't that she wasn't use to being watched, there was always a bird watching even now when she wore more silk than dirt but the stares of society were different. Audrey had learned a Brooklyn bird was a harmless observer while a society member was a vicious predator.

She sat for the first twenty minutes of the performance, perfectly still with a delicate half smile plastered to her face and her eyes remaining popped open. Twenty minutes when she was sure she would rip off the skin on the inside of both her hands. It was forty minutes before she began taking shorter breaths inducing a barely visible panting followed by a slight shaking of her tense shoulders.

"Go on, do try not to draw attention to yourself." Thomas Longfellow whispered her release. Audrey controlled the urge to jump out of her seat as she slowly rose and stiffly turned away from the bright lights and unblinking eyes. She took a step for every three heartbeats making an effort to walk out gracefully, quietly, unnoticed. Once outside the Opera box, she kept her eyes down and drew her arms into her torso trying to make herself smaller in the vastness of the Opera House. Her feet guided her to the wall, to the edge of the hall that lead her out into the darkness of the night.

It wasn't until Audrey stepped out into the cool night air and felt the night embrace her gray evening gown that she closed her own eyes. The chill of the night air didn't take long to settle onto her warm skin before she realized she hadn't collected her coat before exiting her gilded cage. But nothing, not even the night air would compel Audrey to step back inside to become the object of such scrutiny again. Instead the young lady of society began to walk, stroll at a pace unbecoming to any other young lady of her social standing but rather agreeable to Laces.

As she walked, she pulled at the fashionable puff sleeves that reached her elbow and with each tug a piece of paper appeared in her hand. For days, Audrey had been carrying around her letter from Jack Kelly with her everywhere she went. She had read the scratched out words so many times she could recite them from memory. The ink was starting to fade and the smell of the west had long since turned into the perfumed mixture Nancy often used in the wash.

"Reading something interesting?" Les Jacobs asked nonchalantly. The newsboy stood just within arms reach of her, leaning against a lamppost in a familiar stance with newspapers tucked under one arm and a cigarette burning down between his lips.

"Something about a cowboy out west." Audrey smiled. As she looked up she caught the way the Les wrinkled his cheeks into a familiar grin, so much like his brother and sister.

"Cowboys only exist in dime novels and penny comics." Les pressed his fingers over the last embers of his cigarette before throwing it down. Laces' smile twitched slightly distressed by the roughness of Les' voice but her eyes caught sight of the stack of newspapers.

"Why aren't you shouting headlines?" She demanded.

"Waiting for the shows to get out, best spot just down the street in about an hour. Didn't you ever sell with Jack on Saturday nights?" Les asked quirking an eyebrow in surprise. Laces shook her head and noticed the nervous anticipation in the boy as he pushed his palm against his forehead and ran his fingers through his shaggy hair. It was strange how Les Jacobs had become such a product of the two older boys he had considered his brothers. The dimples and the smile, even the shirt were all hints of David. But the long shaggy hair and nervous anticipation to peddle papers echoed of Jack.

"No. I think Jack preferred selling with you until you stopped looking seven. And then, well and then he liked selling alone without distraction for his big editions." Laces explained as she stared at the papers in her hand. Her eyes focused on the cramped handwriting towards the bottom of the second page, clear words she could almost hear Jack laughing.

_This kid doesn't even shout his headline, so I tell him I won't buy a pape unless… _

She laughs as she reads his words, hears his annoyance at the lack of pride in the trade he had made his entire life out of thus far. Jack Kelly had taught most of Manhattan how to sell newspapers and cleverly made a profit from anyone under ten.

"You haven't written them back." Les sighed. There was no reproach in his voice, just an observation like his older brother would make. The Jacobs brothers were raised with a sister and knew better than to accuse or poke at an emotional girl.

"You write to tell David you've been skipping school?" She shot back at him. The newsboy let a scowl flash across his face before shaking his head.

"Nope, but at least I write to them." Les spat back, his upbringing surrendering to his natural quick temper. "He asks about you, asks me if I've seen you…"

"He is the one who left." Laces responded angrily.

"I suspect Jack Kelly was always meant to leave New York." The subtle sullen voice of Skittery sunk into the air around Laces like a familiar blanket. She let her fingers curl back into her palm, settling her nails into the indents of her skin.

"He stayed for Sarah." Audrey whispered. The young lady stood glaring at Les, or rather past him at some figment of a memory while ignoring the present memories around her.

"He stayed for all of us." Les frowned as he nervously shifted his weight.

A shiver hit Laces with such a force that her entire body shook and goose bumps danced along her arms naturally. For a moment, the illusion of her silk dress and elegant hair do fit the bout of cold that struck her but then the shadow of her reality settled because Laces had been colder than this. Skittery had stepped forward at Les words, anticipating her reaction and wrapping his arms around her waist as if his instinct was an involuntary reaction to her discomfort.

"Kelly was always a dreamer, he hoped you'd come back." Skittery murmured the words into her ear, calming the slight shaking disguised as shivers. In a quick step previously used only to escape foolishly aimed walking sticks, toy swords, flying pillows or open palms Skittery slid Laces behind him letting his hand slip into hers.

"I best head off before some scab steals my spot up near the lights and glitter. You know all them theater goers, suckers for a sweet face…" Les shrugged anxious again.

"You got another face?" Skittery mocked.

Les rolled his eyes as he swung his leg out dramatically. Skittery flipped a nickel up into the air. The coin barely tumbled twice before Les held it tightly in his right hand.

"Two?" He asked excitedly. Skittery just nodded. The newsboy curled the two papers up in the way he had often folded his "last papers" as a child.

"Make sure no one follows us?" Skittery asked with only a hint of command. Les winked his agreement before laying his eyes back on the now quiet Audrey.

"You'll like the story on page 8." He winked before sauntering away, five cents richer. As Les escaped into the shadows and recess of the avenue of lights, Skittery guided Audrey carefully down a wide alley.

"Did Critter send you out to get me?"

Skittery didn't bother to answer the question. He knew she knew the answer. Audrey still clutched the letter from Jack to her chest, as she let Skittery pull her along to the little Hudson Theater.

There was a single door with cracking pale blue paint nestled in the side of a brick building. The door appeared unimportant, almost unworthy of note except for the worn shoelace dangling from a cooked nail and tied to a single gray feather. It was in front of the door that Skittery paused in his guidance.

It was in the familiar partial darkness, creeping odor of garage and seeping sense of hardship that Audrey actually looked at Skittery. She noticed immediately the sudden emergence of facial hair on the once smooth youthful face. Reaching out with the hand still clutching her letter, Audrey tried to confirm the change. But Skittery caught her hand and twisted her wrist around to allow him to study the cramped writing of a certain Jack Kelly.

"What are you waiting for?' He asked.

"For you to open the door, I suppose." Audrey responded smartly. She didn't fight for Skittery to release her hand, but merely stood still enough for him to read the letter.

"I doubt you don't have anything to say." Skittery sighed. No matter how familiar the setting, the world had changed between Laces and Skittery.

"There is not a feather on any of the other doors." Laces replied, starring past the man to the door behind him. Skittery rolled his eyes and dropped her hand. An agitated whistle, low and gravelly as if the sound was pushed through the clenched teeth and only through the tiniest crack at the edge of a pair of lips, screeched through the alleyway. The sound almost hissed, get out of the alley fools. Almost.

The door swung open and then words were actually growled.

"Get her inside."

A hand settled into the nook of her back, shoving ever so lightly but enough to make the young lady move. She swayed forward and clicked the bottom of her slippers clacked against the tiny step. The swiftness of the movement left Audrey confused about if she had always intended to obey the growl. Strong arms caught her as she stepped inside and she didn't need to look up to know the rough touch was Critter O'Connell.

"Audrey," He sighed in an unfamiliar gentle whisper. Before any more words were said, between the door closing and the gas lamp being turned up, Audrey was wrapped in a heavy coat.

"Not cold." She muttered. She still wasn't looking up, instead focusing on working to get her letter buried deep into her fancy dress.

"You look like you could be." Critter replied. His arm was now wrapped around her shoulders and Audrey finally looked up to realize the man had shrugged out of his own coat.

"Were you outside?" She wondered out loud. It was not cold inside under brilliant stage lamps, leaving the only conclusion to be that the man had been outside recently. Critter ignored her question as he guided her around sandbags and half built sets. Skittery was at their heels, unable to walk as quietly as the legendry bird or unwilling to exert the effort.

The Hudson Theater shimmered with warmth and anonymity a stark contrast to the Opera House Audrey had escaped. The young lady was being pushed along so quickly she couldn't see any of the audience or hear any of the performance.

"You were alerted the moment I stepped outside?" Audrey guessed quietly as Skittery ducked forward and unlocked an office door. Critter scoffed quietly as he stretched out to flicker on a gas lamp precariously balanced on a stalk of books.

"You leave that on, it's none to warm up here." Critter commanded. Laces had started to try to tug the heavy coat off her shoulders but stopped at the brisk tone. Instead, she began to study the small office around her.

There were two desks, pushed against opposite walls of the tiny room. One significantly messier than the other, with weeks old newspapers and an old newsboy cap stuffed amongst a large leather bound book and a dusty skull. Dropping her eyes down to the floor, she noticed the extra pair of boots tucked under the neater desk and a basket overflowing with bits and ends of feathers and yarn.

"Got you a pape." Skittery handed over his second World Evening edition. Neither hand was sitting in the tiny office, instead hovering in the small space imposing their presence on the furniture and Audrey.

"Audrey," Critter nodded at the empty chair in front of the cleaner desk.

"Keeping me out of trouble until the dreadful Opera is over?" She snapped at the man, before bending to his order.

Critter smiled as he opened his paper, again not answering a question he knew Laces only asked to interrupt the quiet she so hated. He hadn't seen her in weeks, though he knew about every social activity she had partaken in. The man studied her out of the corner of his eye, as he read his newspaper. He was waiting for her to question him further, but she seemed content studying the office. It did not escape Laces that Critter settled down to read his paper, slightly perched on his own desk next to her, effectively blocking the only entrance and exit from the office.

The office was quiet, an air of familial tranquility hanging just above their heads. Skittery sat down in his chair, folding his newspaper for later as he began to scribble over the ledger still open from his earlier work. Critter purposefully kept reading, ignoring Audrey as she sat perfectly straight expertly hiding her fidgeting hands under the desk. The old bird was allowing the girl to get comfortable, adapt to the new surrounding as he had seen her do so many times before. By pretending she had always been in this place, Critter allowed Laces the ability to settle down as if she was a regular in the tiny office. He waited patiently until the moment when he heard her hands rustling in the basket under his desk.

"You write to Jacob Henry Canterbury often enough." He stated abruptly. Audrey dropped whatever object she had managed to grab from the basket with a clunk. Her bright brown eyes flashed up to meet the steady gaze of Critter. She gritted her teeth ready to reply angrily but Critter didn't give her an opportunity.

"Can't find enough time to write to Jack is it?" He questioned softly. Skittery was trying his best to keep on with his own work, not get involved in whatever methods Critter was taking with Laces.

"Do you even want Jack writing to me? Won't it ruin your plan, their plan to have me be a social delight." Laces once again tried to shrug out of the heavy jacket, now feeling trapped again. Critter reached out with one hand and clasped his thumb and forefinger over the neck button of his own coat forcefully keeping the material wrapped around her.

"It's cold in here." He sighed before proceeding. "Do you want to write to Jack and think I won't allow it?"

Critter O'Connell would bet his life that the thought of obeying such an edict had never crossed the stubborn girl's mind. His shoulders tensed and his dark brows pressed down in a frown at the mere thought of Laces hiding behind such a lie. She caught his change in demeanor immediately and just shook her head.

"What is that?" He demanded.

"No. It's not because of you." She whispered dropping her eyes from his angry stare.

"And I know it's not because of Thomas or Casey." Critter continued. Laces made no attempt to object to the statement of knowledge.

"And we all know he's been writing you." Critter ventured. She just nodded miserably pulling at the corner of the paper that was still visible in the cuff of the coat.

"Do you not want to write to him?" Skittery piped in.

"That's not it…" She tried defending herself.

"Pride is a nasty thing." Critter snapped his wrist and in a quick movement was holding the letter from Jack Kelly.

"Give it back!" Audrey demanded instantly jumping to her feet. "And it has nothing to do with pride."

"Aren't dwelling on how he left? How angry are you at him? At Spot?" Critter taunted.

"Think you know everything!" Audrey growled as she spun her shoulder into Critter's chest and wrapped her hands around the fist holding her letter.

"I do know everything." Critter chuckled as he let her overtake him. Loosening his grip on the letter so she could retrieve it without ripping the paper.

"What do you care if I write to Jack or not?" She demanded.

"I might not care so much about Jack than I do about Spot, but aside from that you are distracted by your feelings." Critter wrapped his arm around her torso pulling to turn her around to face him.

"And that matters because?" Audrey glared at him.

"It makes you vulnerable. You don't notice things, like when someone is following you…" Critter glared back.

"No one is following me, I'm not in danger all the time." She threw her hands up.

"You've been back in the city for almost two months. Have you even been invited to call on any of the prestigious families? The Astors?" Critter crossed his arms over his chest expectantly. Audrey huffed impatiently. She was annoyed at the lack of importance to the conversation she was having with a man that might know something about Jack Kelly or Spot Conlon.

"What do the Astors have to do with anything?" Audrey demanded.

"Everything, according to every newspaper in the city. You are trying to fit in?" Critter reproached.

"You should just stop being angry at them." Skittery sighed trying to control the tempers around him.

"And stop being such a child." Critter added harshly.

"Everyone insists upon treating me as a child." She huffed.

"He is going to stop writing if you don't start replying." Critter barely spoke his threat above a whisper.

"Why did you bring me here?" She cried at Skittery.

"To keep you out of trouble until we return you to the Longfellow Estate tonight." Critter responded before Skittery could open his mouth.

"We don't get to see you often." Skittery added.

"Here, use this and I'll get you a cup of coffee." Critter pushed forward a fountain pen as he pushed his body off the desk. Laces clutched the pen in her hand and watched as the man disappeared down the steps.

"Who does he think he is?' Audrey fumed.

"The man that's going to get your letter in the mail and to the right place." Skittery smiled as he pulled a cigarette.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Sorry for the delay! I was trudging along, trying to write through exhaustion which meant only sentences at a time. But I am pleased with what happened in this section, so hopefully I will jump to the next section pretty quickly. Let me know what you all think! <em>


	11. October 31, 1902

**October 31, 1902**

Even with his eyes closed, Jasper knew where every bird was in the building. He was lying rigidly still with his arms tensely cradling his head and his toes twitching enough to shake the chair that created the end of his makeshift bed.

Jasper listened as someone clumsily stepped onto the roof above and he slowly began to press his shoulders into the slightly cushioned, blanketed board he rested on. As his body curved upward, he stretched out his hands in either direction for one breath before curling his wrists into his hanging suspenders. In seconds, Jasper was sitting up and lacing up his boots ready to appear as if he never slept at all.

The footsteps had moved from the rooftop to stomping down the stairs in the hallway on the other side of the paper-thin wall. Jasper pushed the base of his hands into his closed eyes, rubbing out the sleep he hadn't achieved. As the door creaked opened, the young man stood up like a general ready for battle.

"You should lift your feet when you walk." Jasper sighed heavily. He pivoted gracefully, letting his arms fold over his chest immediately exhibiting expectancy.

"Forgive me if I was a bit sluggish after running…" Bitter began. Jasper arched an eyebrow and clenched his jaw, daring the girl in front of him to complain. The nest had been moved to an abandoned tenement building in the Lower East Side, Manhattan. It was the first time the Birds of Brooklyn had ever left the familiar banks of the East River and the solid confines of Brooklyn. Jasper hated being on the wrong side of the bridge and many of his birds didn't appreciate it either. But the move had been commanded, an edict directly from Critter O'Connell was never ignored.

"...Well, I was running around earlier…" Bitter grumbled.

"The coffee in the Lower East Side is just the same as the coffee in Brooklyn." Jasper chastised lightly. He knew Bitter had been running across the bridge often for foods she insisted were better on that side of the river.

"Ain't really though. Even Daisy says…" Bitter started but bite down on her lower lip as she caught the menacing glare from Jasper.

"I ain't really the waiting type, Bitter…" Jasper growled as he began rolling a cigarette in his left hand.

"Yeah, right. Of course, ain't mean to make you wait or nothing." Bitter mumbled as she slammed her shoulder against the doorframe. She watched as Jasper weaved a match through his fingers, meticulous and focused. But before the man lit the match, a faint scent of burning reached her nose. Before Bitter registered the oddity, Jasper had flown past her and down the cramped stairs of the building.

Two flights down, on the backside of the third floor stood two seven year old twin boys giggling at flicker flame in an old tin bath. A few of the other younger birds sat curled up around the room, wearing half constructed masks or costumes and delighting in the building fire. The twins didn't realize when the unnatural hush settled over their companions until a sharp pain smack the back of their knees.

"What has gotten into you fools?" Jasper roared. Using the hand not holding the plank of wood he had used to strike the twins, he picked up Ghost by the back of his suspenders.

"Go down and get a bucket of water. Quicker than quick." Jasper commanded as he shoved the ten year old the door. He was glaring down at the twins. The boys were fighting not to let the tears escape their eyes.

"What are you two doing?" Jasper demanded again as his first question had yet to be answer. Wild, the twin missing his two front teeth, dared to look up at the tall leader of the birds with dissatisfaction.

"We were lighting our Halloween fire…" Wild tried to control his sniffles.

"…To keep away the bad ghouls." West, the twin with all the freckles rubbed at his eyes. Jasper had not been soft with his whacking of the two little boys, though he had control himself to only hit them once.

"You've always let us light a fire before." Raindrop, a scruffy twelve-year-old girl, poked her head out from a nearby hammock.

"We have always been in a warehouse before, where the fire could be control and I could keep an eye on you misfits. This is a tenement building that would go up in flames like that," Jasper snapped his fingers loudly and his left wrist twitched enough for the plank of wood to look as if it might strike again. The twins scrunched their eyes closed, trying to prepare for the expectant blow but it never came.

"You didn't have to whack the kids." Raindrop ventured.

"I should whack you! You being the eldest in the room and letting these children almost burn down the new nest." Jasper suggested, now actually turning to stare at girl.

Raindrop didn't retreat back into her bed, instead lifting her head up to let her chin hover over the canvas material. She had clearly been asleep, her black hair sticking up over her forehead and her dark eyes slightly glazed.

"Don't hit Raindrop!" West begged.

"Yeah, we'll take her licks. It was our fault." Wild nodded bravely.

Jasper growled at their insolence, debating smacking the boys for good measure. But upon catching sight of Bitter now leaning in the doorframe, Jasper itched to know news again. He lifted his foot and let his boot stomped down extinguishing the flickering flame. A huff of disappointment escaped the children of the room, but none dared express their feelings out loud.

"How are we going to keep out the ghosts now?" A tough looking girl of about nine asked from the worn out carpet at the mouth of the backroom.

"Keep the windows closed." Jasper sighed weary of the conversation already. He knelt down, dropping the plank and reaching out with both his hands to clasp the back of each twins' neck.

"No more fires." Jasper hissed through gritted teeth. The little boys looked like they were about to object, so Jasper added quickly. "Or I will give you a few licks to cry about."

The twins nodded as they squirmed away from their leaders grasp. Wild and West were the youngest birds to ever join the flock. A pair of strays that Daisy hadn't been able to resist, she had convinced Jasper they would be great assets. She had argued that them being so young and small, they could be trained well and fit into cramped spaces.

"When's Daisy getting back? She said she would bring us treats." Wild questioned.

"You don't deserve any treats, almost burning the nest down." Jasper grumbled as he stood back up. Ghost stumbled back in, carrying a pail of water with both hands. He struggled to dump the water onto the glowing embers of the fire, without any help from anyone else in the room.

"You didn't let us out for our own treats, least let us have the treats the bigger kids get us." Raindrop reproached. Jasper growled again, annoyed the little girl continued to bicker with him. She had recently grown into her mouth but unfortunately Jasper couldn't blame her current compliant. The leader of the birds had forbid any of the birds not on assignment to go out for Halloween. His flock was new to living in Manhattan and he didn't want any of his birds to draw attention to themselves or their nest. Besides, Matches had reported just days ago the city police were going to crack down on miscreants which would no doubt included most of his flock.

"I brought some sweets." Bitter popped her lips as she pulled out a handful of wrapped sweets from her pocket. The trained children in the room swamped Bitter, scrambling quietly and expertly into a position to all simultaneously steal the candy.

"You had better have been paying attention to what was happening around you and not just where to get treats from." Jasper murmured as he glared at Bitter. Bitter inched into the center of the room with a swarm of children surrounding her as Jasper slipped out into the cramped hallway. All the doors on the third floor were open and Jasper listened to the sounds of craps games, teasing, musings and even some snoring. He heard the pressure of soft footsteps stepping through a window near a fire escape and he turned as Matches approached.

"You weren't upstairs." Matches shrugged nonchalantly as he noted the disapproval on Jasper's face. Jasper ran a hand over his chin, exasperated by the evening already.

"Come on." Jasper started sprinting up the stairs. The fourth floor was where the Owls usually slept. It was the quietest floor of the entire building, aside from the eerily silence of the fifth floor where only the most seasoned birds settled to always listening.

Matches followed Jasper past the makeshift bed, the leader rarely slept on and into the front room where a large table was cramped. Jasper sat down in the chair nearest the open window, glancing out into the darkness only once.

"Did she get there all right then?" Jasper prompted. Matches was tucking his toes into the backing of the chair he was perched upon, already shuffling through a deck of cards.

"Was there ever any doubt she would get there all right?" Matches popped one of his reddish eyebrows up in mockery. Jasper shrugged not chastising his old friend for the tone, or questioning.

"We never really know with that girl, she steps off a sidewalk and the direction of the wind changes." Jasper sighed dropping his head to light the cigarette he had been holding since Bitter arrived ages before.

"The three of them arrived in their best carriage. I believe Thomas and Casey were dressed as George and Martha Washington." Matches frowned at the statement before dealing out five cards to Jasper.

"And Laces?" Jasper nodded as he flicked his cards up to study his hand.

"Cinderella. Hardly recognized her…"

Every movement caught a glint or glitter from one of the sewn in jewels of Audrey's gown. From the way the girl tilted her head up, pulling down her mask slightly to observe, Matches knew she thought the costume was like a firework for every bird on Fifth Avenue. He smiled as he noted how she appeared to be moving gracefully to the front door of the Samson estate, Halloween was after all a night of deception.

"She wasn't moving gracefully?" Jasper questioned.

"That gown is heavy she was moving slowly, sluggish." Matches winked as he traded out two of cards Jasper had placed on the table. Jasper nodded, Laces had been taught by the harsh realities of the streets to move quickly not gracefully.

"So you just watched her arrive?" Jasper asked. There was an edge of irritation and disappointment that colored the leader's words, a warning that Matches had better have more information than just what the girl had been wearing to the party.

"Well I saw everyone arrive at the party, including a Sir Jacob Henry Canterbury who was dressed as a prince." Matches smiled mischievously as he threw two pennies, three caramel candies, and a shoestring on the table.

"Matches," Jasper growled as he chucked a booklet of matches, and three cigarettes onto the table.

"It's amazing how some people don't see past the edge of their very own nose." Matches frowned at the annoyance on Jasper's face but continued.

"I was sitting up in that tree across from the Samson place, the one that's just a bit too big to be in front of the third Astor cousin's home…"

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: I have just reached the first 50 page mark, so the first section of this story will be available on .com by the end of this week (with some minor corrections from the original postings on ). Aside from that I hope everyone is enjoying the story thus far, be sure to let me know what you're enjoying, wondering about, hating... you know whatever strikes your fancy. ~Laces. <em>


	12. Daisy

_Daisy_

* * *

><p>Being in a room full of people was something akin to torture for a bird as well trained as Daisy. She didn't often play roles, preferring by nature to watch from the rooftops than to be in the mist of anything. But she had received an order, a direct order to be in the mist of the Samson Masquerade and thus she stood with her back against a wall in the entryway of the mansion off Fifth Avenue.<p>

A roar of laughter made Daisy's shoulders tense slightly but her firm posture didn't change. She kept her eyes snapped on the distorted reflection of a mob of young people in the face of the glass cabinet across the hall in the open front parlor that had long since been abandoned. It was nearing first light and Daisy was fighting the sleep that was starting to prick against the back of her eyes.

As the dancing stopped, Daisy heard the shuffle in footsteps from a pair of young people getting ready to leave. She waited until she heard the giggling voice of a young Miss Gretchen announced that it was getting late. Daisy stepped lightly away from her post at the wall and skipped urgently into the empty parlor. She emerged carrying two coats and a fashionable clutch perfectly in time with Miss Gretchen and Mr. Davidson as they left the party behind them.

"Ah, what a delightfully trained thing." Miss Gretchen clapped happily. Daisy's nose twitched as she focused on not rolling her eyes at the stupidity of the socially elite.

"Thank you." Mr. Davidson received the jackets gracefully nodding. Daisy kicked her heel into her other heel, spinning slightly and stepping over to hold the door open for the couple.

"Good night." Daisy whispered, barely looking at the woman and man as they stepped into the darkness of the night. She lingered at the door for a second, to look out across the street and check for Matches. She had seen him earlier in the night, sitting perched among the leaves with a ridiculous green hat hiding his red hair. But even her constant partner had disappeared from the branches. A soft whistle escaped into the house as she pushed the door closed, informing the bird of where Matches had gone.

Audrey turned her head to stare into the empty entryway, searching instinctually for the shadow from which the hushed whistle escaped. Though it would be easily to believe she had imagined the familiar twitter of air being harmonized between a child's lips, the young lady was well aware of the presence of the birds tonight. She had long since noticed Daisy, blatantly posing as a hired hand in the Samson household.

"Is something wrong?" Jacob whispered as the rest of the group laughed. Audrey forced out a giggle as she reached up tucking a stray curl behind her right ear. She shook her head, softly and discreetly as she turned her attentions back to the ever socially delightful Grayson Williams. Although Audrey maintained a polite stare in the direction of the young gentlemen while he reenacted an adventurous jaunt in the wilderness of Africa, she was focused on listening beyond the warmth of the socially elite.

She impatiently and mindless started tapping her mask against her lap, trying to interpret the faint whistle she had just heard. Suddenly the world around her had lost its charm, a glittering room packed with after party guests of the Samson sisters. Audrey had been invited by Elizabeth, the only sister to delight in her presence. The pretty young ward of the Longfellow household had outshone most of the other girls at the party in her magnificent Cinderella garb and the added benefit of being escorted most of the night by the coveted Mr. Jacob Canterbury. She had smiled, danced and chatted marvelously until this point in the late evening when the real world seemed to reach out to her.

Grayson Williams had reached a particularly vivid part of his tale and began to mimic a natural birdcall as he jumped around the room. The loud and frightfully familiar sound made Audrey panic enough to drop her mask from surprise. The mask didn't even hit the floor before Jacob had it secured in his grasp. Audrey pressed her eyes closed for a beat, before opening them to stare at Jacob as she reached out for her mask.

Jacob Henry Canterbury had a bemused expression on his handsome face. He had his head slightly tilted in a curious manner and the hand grasping Audrey's mask hung delicately in the air. He held out the mask to her without ever opening his mouth to ask her what it was that was wrong again. Jacob had learned months before that the girl never changed her mind about answering a question she didn't want to be asked. Elizabeth snuck a glance at her two friends from the shore ever curious about their friendship and the secrets they appeared to share with every batted eyelash and silent request. She had noticed how Audrey had tensed in posture and how Jacob hadn't removed his gaze from her since the last guests had left.

Grayson had begun to bow as his story had reached an ending and the group politely clapped at his antics. Jacob took his cue to stand and offer his hand to Audrey.

"I have a train to catch tomorrow and I promised Mr. Longfellow to have Miss Audrey home before sun up." Jacob smiled dashingly to the other guests. Audrey took his hand as she pulled herself up and smiled brightly.

"And I doubt any story could quite top Mr. Williams adventures."

Grayson Williams glided over to her and took his hand in a dramatic sweep and kiss her hand. A wave of resent ripple through the young ladies of the room as Miss Kai held the hand of one eligible bachelor while receiving attentions from a second.

"But I was about to suggest Hank tell a shrieking ghost tale." Grayson winked.

"Ah better leave then before he convinces me of the ghouls that are wandering about in the night." Audrey laughed lightly as she nodded to the gentlemen playing with the lace of the oldest Samson sister's sleeve.

"I will walk you out," Elizabeth jumped up from the seat she had been occupying next to Audrey. After an exchange of polite farewells, Jacob led both ladies out of the light of the party and into the entryway.

"I am still so sorry your sister could not join us Jacob." Elizabeth lamented once again.

"I don't think your sisters were," Jacob barely whispered. Audrey flicked a finger at the young man's arm at his bluntness.

"Jacob," She chastised, surprising herself by how much she sounded like Casey.

"I think he might be right, dreadful how they throw themselves at all of them." Elizabeth grumbled not even bothering to look over her shoulder at her sisters.

"Leave your sisters be," Audrey sighed. She was quietly annoyed at having to be the voice of reason among her friends. Jacob shrugged, hurrying the process of biding the youngest Samson farewell as he pushed Audrey out the door in her coat.

As soon as the two young people were out onto the street, Audrey's eyes began to scan the darkness. She strained her ears to listen beyond the soft murmur of Jacob's voice beside her, to hear the whispers or distant whistling of her constant shadows. But as Jacob led her across a street, Audrey smiled at the stillness of the night. Critter would be proud of his legacy, birds that fade to the point of disappearing onto the streets of New York.

"If I didn't know better, I would think you were looking for someone out here in the middle of the night." Jacob teased. Audrey's wandering eyes finally settled on the bemused expression on her escort's face.

"Just a ghost…"

Across the street a carriage sat shrouded in darkness and sitting perfectly still, as if waiting for a dinner guest long since gone. Daisy had her body pressed against the back wheel of the carriage, carefully hiding even her shadows from the prying eyes of Audrey Kai.

"Did she see a ghost tonight?" Critter whispered from somewhere inside the carriage. Daisy frowned as she craned her neck to look around the empty sidewalk. Critter pushed the door open and with a firm grasp, latched onto Daisy's pristine pressed white collar and pulled her into the carriage with him.

Daisy stumbled into the carriage, using her own hand to keep Critter from unintentionally choking her to death. She used her free hand to stabilize her landing into the seat across from Critter, but didn't bother to study his figure but instead leaned slightly to check that Audrey had reached the doorstep of the Longfellow home.

"She's inside." Critter chuckled. He leaned forward letting his elbows rest on his knees as he took in Daisy's appearance. As Daisy settled back into plush seat she noticed the frown etched into Critter's features.

"Stealing from the rich Crit?" Daisy smiled brightly as she started untangling her light locks from the restrictive bun. She avoided staring at the look of anger on Critter's face, she was confidant it couldn't be anything she had done.

Critter kept his eyes fixed on her movements as the girl undid her hair and let the long strands dance over her shoulders. She didn't have any sense of modestly as she began unbuttoning the back of her black dress. Critter's frown slowly melted off his face as Daisy shrugged back into her slightly oversized brown coat with the misplaced button that she had sewn in herself to tighten the cloth over her petite waist. Critter started to lean back as Daisy leaned over her knees and pulled out a scrap of newspaper. The bird didn't read it, or even look at the scrap but merely used her thumb to collect ink to press into her clean cheeks.

"Feel better?" Critter questioned. Before Daisy opened her mouth to respond, the loud rumble of her empty stomach answered for her. Critter chuckled again as he reached into his own coat pocket and took out a sandwich wrapped in a napkin.

"So you ain't mad at me?" Daisy stated as she took the food offering.

"Done something to feel guilty about?" Critter asked seriously as he crossed his arms across his chest.

"No." Daisy snapped immediately. Critter's eyebrow shot up as if he questioned her sincerity.

"You were frowning." Daisy shrugged as she took a big bite of the food.

"You just looked so very young again," Critter sighed.

"I'm not nine anymore." Daisy stated firmly. When Critter O'Connell had found Daisy, she had been a nine-year-old recently dismissed maid. Critter had taken her under his wing along with a ragtag boy who sold matches and taught them how to be birds. There was nothing in the world Daisy loved more than being a bird, so when Critter had asked her at the age of nine and at the age of eighteen to be a maid again for the sake of being a bird she could not refuse.

"You don't seem surprised to see me." Critter kicked up his feet.

"Birds are never surprised to see anyone." Daisy recited between bites. Critter nodded, annoyed that his own words were being echoed back to him.

"Well?" Critter finally prompted.

"Jasper…" Daisy started.

"Don't you say it," Critter warned.

"What do you want to know?' Daisy sighed as she crumpled up the rest of the paper that once held the sandwich she devoured. Critter coughed impatiently.

"I arrived late this afternoon…" Daisy began.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Some wonderful soul has nominated Finish the Fight to New York Newsies Awards, and to actually make it into the final round the story has to be within the top 5 nominations. Taking that into account, if you like (or even love) this work in progress... go on over to nyna <em>


	13. Novemeber 1902

_November 1902 _

* * *

><p>Bottle Cap stood with his thumbs expertly pulling out his suspenders as he used the rest of his fingers to comb through the morning edition.<p>

"What's the headline?" Slingshot lazily yawned. The leader of Brooklyn was lying on the ground with his hat pulled over his closed eyes.

"Read the paper." Cap kicked over an edition.

"You could just read it out loud. Sort of like hawking headlines." Slingshot waved his arm around over his head without bothering to move the paper that now covered the half of his face that his hat had left visible.

"Get up and be a newsboy. Where is your pride?" Cap growled.

"Must have left it in the boarding house." Slingshot snapped his cheeky response. Having reached the end of his patience for one morning, Bottle Cap picked up his boot and jabbed it into the right side of Slingshot's ribcage.

"Hey there!" Slingshot had the paper off his face, his hat pushed up and his body in enough of a sitting position to punch someone in less time than it took him to express his annoyance in words. And he might have punched Bottle Cap, if he had been anyone of his other newsboys.

"I ain't never doing you the favor of getting your morning editions again." Cap warned seriously as his fingers twitched enough to dare his leader to pick a fight with him.

Slingshot growled and grumbled as he pushed himself off the ground and jumped to stand next to Bottle Cap, pretending as if he had been standing the entire time. Cap shook his head as he shoved a paper into Slingshot's chest without apology. The first paper laid half crumbled and slightly forgotten by Slingshot's dusty boots.

"Carrying an extra forty papes has you in a mood." Slingshot frowned.

"Having a lazy bum for a leader has me in a mood."

A quick temper can only be controlled for so long, and the leader of Brooklyn had never been known to hold it long. Slingshot rolled his shoulder and had his fist where Cap's jaw had been only seconds before. But Bottle Cap was practically an authority on dodging incoming fights and had shifted out of the way slightly. The force behind Slingshot's well-trained punch sent the boy tumbling forward.

"Hold up there," Cap used his left leg to steady his stumbling leader. Slingshot shot him a murderous glare.

"I should pound you." He grumbled.

"Maybe one day you'll be quick enough." Cap rolled his eyes but the newsboy stepped just out arm's reach of his leader, just in case.

There was a moment when Slingshot weighed his options, clenching and unclenching his fist before deciding the fight would lead no where. Bottle Cap would not apologize, never admit fault and the permanent shadow of the new order boy king already knew of Brooklyn's power. Slingshot let out a low growl as he shoved the palm of his left hand into his temple in frustration, pushing back his unruly hair as he started to scan his own paper.

"Maybe you shouldn't miss curfew at your own lodging house…" Cap finally ventured to state. He didn't have to look up to know the piercing glare the younger Kai was shooting in his direction, it was similar to the glare of his cousin and a particular Conlon.

"I wasn't that late." Slingshot defended through gritted teeth.

"Late enough to sleep on the ground…"

"Look here Bottle Cap, if you didn't want to do the favor ain't no body that made you..." Slingshot started hotly but the intent frown on Cap's face cut the rant short. Hooking his boot into the iron fence behind him, Slingshot leaned over enough to look at the page of the paper Cap was reading. Expert eyes roamed the tiny print in search of what story could possibly be captivating enough to crinkle a forehead.

"Miss Audrey Kai, dressed sharply as Cinderella, arrived at the ball on the arm of her Prince Charming, the Jacob Henry Canterbury…" Slingshot read out loud. Cap's instincts kicked in immediately and his elbow pushed back into Slingshot's arm so quickly and with so much force the paper tore at the centerfold. Slingshot reacted just as quick, unhooking his boot and swinging it around to kick Cap in the back of the knee. Cap was on the ground in a huff but the boy took the physical rebuff quietly.

The two boys fumed at each other in silence, as Cap collected his papers and Slingshot's from the ground and stood back up.

"We can't talk about Audrey in public…" Cap hissed below a whisper as he handed Slingshot his papers for the third time this morning.

"And I'm the leader." Slingshot hissed back.

The two young men started roaming down the docks on the Brooklyn side of the East River in silence. Every few steps, Slingshot would pull forward and shout a headline or Cap would stand back and shout a headline. Each boy sold a dozen of their papers before they spoke again.

The morning bustle was in full force now, screeching from deck hands and young mothers and older sisters trying to work a deal. The noise of the city was enough now that the newsies could talk between headlines enough to not be easily overheard.

"Where in Brooklyn are my birds hiding these days?" Slingshot finally asked.

"Just noticing?" Cap mocked as he shook his head.

"What am I just noticing?"

"They are hiding in Manhattan." Cap shook his head. With squinting eyes, Slingshot looked across the East River towards Manhattan.

"They are the Brooklyn Birds." He stated stubbornly.

"Yes." Cap nodded in agreement.

"Why'd you go and let them move to Manhattan?"

"I didn't go and let them do anything. They've got their own stubborn leaders." Cap shrugged.

"Coffee?" A pair of hands shoved two tin cups sloshing with dark liquid at the two young men. The scent was strong enough for Slingshot to immediately take the offering without thought or regard to the seller but Cap held out his hand to stop his leader from drinking.

"How much?" He questioned as he looked up. As he recognized the face in front of him, he released his hand from Slingshot's cup and proceeded to take his own cup.

"It'd do if you two fools didn't shout about us in the middle of Brooklyn." RB stated tersely.

"We ain't shouting." Cap replied between slurps.

"Besides, Irish this ain't nowhere near the middle of Brooklyn or have you forgotten because you've…" Slingshot didn't manage to finish his statement as he felt the iron tight grip of fiery Irish bird on his wrist.

"Keep talking and that coffee will be on your head." She warned. She waited until he nodded, letting her green eyes danced from his head to his coffee enough times for him to agree.

"And you call me Irish one more time and I'll shove my fist into that dandy nose of yours." RB warned.

"Conlon called you…" Slingshot began.

"Conlon was…" She began but this time it was Slingshot's dark glower that controlled her from finishing the statement.

"So Irish, you selling coffee now?" Slingshot smirked.

"Today."

"What is this about Jacob Henry…" Cap began.

"You two should keep on eye on Buttons, kid's been getting sloppy with his penny pocketing." RB whispered back.

"But what about this Canter…" Slingshot started again.

"Jasper wants to meet with the two of you." RB slipped her hands around the now empty tin cups.

"Why both of us?" Slingshot demanded.

"Cap?" RB prompted before disappearing into the crowd of the docks with her two tin cups.

"We should take care of the pick pocket problem." Cap suggested as he started trudging uphill and away from the bustling docks. Slingshot remained a bit longer, starring off into the crowd trying to find the light red locks of RB once again. Cap sold three more papers before Slingshot was at his side again.

"She didn't tell us about Canterbury."

"She might not know anything about him." Cap explained.

"Jasper should come to us if he wants to meet." Slingshot suggested.

"Not likely."

The boys trudged uphill and back into the crowded shops of the docks. Weaving around the crowd of sailors, traders and sellers the two newsboys finished selling the last of their papers before reaching the end of the riverside port. Slingshot nodded at the tiny pub at the corner before Cap followed him inside.

The pub was barely the size of the front room of the lodging house but it had two tables pushed up against the dusty windows and a plank placed on two barrels masquerading as a bar. The bar keep glared at the boys as they walked in, but Slingshot pushed up a nickel between his thumb and palm before sitting down at one of the tables. Both boys slapped down a nickel onto the table and used their sleeves to clear off the dust on the table.

"Canterbury, that was the boy with the dark hair and an odd habit of smiling?" Slingshot demanded.

"That boy is older than you are." Cap sighed.

Slingshot nodded as he caught sight of a young girl carrying two bowls towards them. The girl shuffled over to the table placing the bowls down with a clank. She grinned a gapped smile as she clutched the nickels with her now empty hands. Cap whipped off his hat as he nodded to her as his brown hair stuck up in every direction. An even smaller child, a boy as tall as the table, trotted behind the girl carrying a plate with a loaf of bread torn in two.

"Thanks kid." Slingshot caught the plate before the boy dropped the bread on the ground. The children scurried off as Slingshot started slurping up his soup. Bottle cap tucked his hair back under his cap before he began to soak his chunk of bread into his watery soup. The boys ate in silence until Slingshot lifted his bowl to tip the remnants of liquid down his throat that Bottle Cap noticed the scarp of paper.

_Still just friends. You know Laces. _

The note was clear, distinctive even. The _S _slightly angled downward, and other letters mostly cramped together as if a child in school had been forced to write the note. Cap frowned as he searched the pub for evidence of the messenger of this news. The little girl with the toothless grin was peeking out from the door at the back of the bar. She was blinking at him, knowing he had received the note she must have suck to the bottom of Slingshot's bowl.

"She's too young." Slingshot muttered as he crumpled the note up.

"For what?' Cap asked distractedly as he let his gaze jump instinctively to the ceiling.

"Come on the afternoon edition is going to be out soon." Slingshot grumbled as he moved out of his seat, nodding to the man behind the bar.

It wasn't until the two young men had disappeared around the corner that the little girl who had delivered her message scurried back out to pick up the empty bowls. As she dipped forward, she carefully pushed a single gray feather into the dirty window sill before she clanked the bowls together and hurried back to her younger brother.


	14. Almost to Santa Fe

**Almost to Santa Fe **

In the cloud of darkness and dust that shrouded the mornings in the South West, three men stood huddled against a wall of an empty train station. Jack tapped the bottom of his heel against the rickety wood of the ticket booth wall, as he nervously lit his third cigarette of the morning. Spot rolled his eyes at the twitching foot as he snapped his fingers in the act of opening an imaginary pocket watch. Even though David stood paces away with his back turned to Spot, he still reacted to the movement by pulling out his own pocket watch.

"It will be here by six." David sighed as he leaned over the platform and searched the horizon for a train.

"It ain't like the morning papers Dave, these trains don't ever come on time. Not out here." Jack muttered bitterly as he flicked the tip of his burned out cigarette towards his anxious companion.

The three men stood in silent impatience as the sleepy town of New Mexico awoke around them. A bell struck somewhere, a singular isolated sound that sharply reminded the men they were no longer in a booming center of international business. Jack nervously ran his fingers through the tangled mess that was his long locks before he stretched out his arm to reach into his pocket. Spot shot out his hand and caught his friend's wrist with an iron like grasp that the old leader usually only reserved for young newsies who had dared crossed him.

"If you smoke through our entire last pack before we even board the train Kelly, I swear…" Spot didn't even bother to finish his threat as he let go of Jack's hand. David didn't need to turn around to address the potential fight behind him. He knew that the two men would at some point in the morning beginning their bickering, just like they did whenever they left one town for another. But David also knew that Jack and Spot had long ago outgrown their need to fight off their anxieties and now strictly resorted to empty threats and muttering insults.

"You'll what Conlon?" Jack taunted as he shoved Spot's grip off his wrist.

"I might pop you one for good measure Kelly." Spot growled. Jack controlled the quirk of his lip knowing that his oldest friend would lose his patience with him if he smiled at his anger. Ducking his head down, Jack stared down at his feet and shuffled his hands back into the inside of his jacket. Spot's hand twitched but remained steadily at his sides as his blues eyes glared at Jack's movements. But Jack didn't pull out any more of the cigarettes; instead the man clutched a bundle of paper.

"Have you read it yet?" Spot sighed running a hand over his tired face. Spot closed his eyes as he turned his glare away from the man that had been a constant pain in his life. After a lifetime as friends, Spot Conlon couldn't avoid the sadness that plagued Jack Kelly but he could avoid starring at it so blatantly.

"She's angry." Jack shrugged defeated.

"That's better than when she wasn't writing at all." Spot offered effortless finding the benefit of the girl's anger.

"Does she say she's angry?" David questioned finally leaving his watch on the edge of the platform.

Jack unfolds the letter and his brown eyes scan the words slowly, taking in each stroke. The old newsboy uses his fingers to guide him along the sentences, as if he was scanning for a headline. But as he reaches the end, the other two newsboys know that there was nothing to prove his point. At the same time, all three men made a living from reading in between the lines and understanding what was never printed.

"She never did like to be left behind." Spot shrugged.

"Critter made her write this letter." Jack frowned dissatisfied.

"He does have a way with words, something about brute force." Spot grumbled bitterly.

"Are we sure he was right?" David whispered the question, he had so often thought. The monstrous noises of a train pulling into the station began to sound in the distance. Jack pushed his body off the rickety wooden wall, as he propelled towards the train with a false excitement. Jack Kelly had learned to ignore unpleasant questions, long before he had met the walking mouth that was David Jacobs.

"Critter O'Connell ain't never been wrong in his life." Spot sighed bitterly. What Jack couldn't count on, or even guess at was when Spot would decide to ignore the pestering insightfulness that David stirred. "Besides, even out in the middle of these deserts Laces would have found trouble."

"Maybe I shouldn't have left." Jack muttered as he stared out at the tiny western town they were leaving. Towns out west were starting to alarmingly appear the same, a blur of places without distinction in the young man's mind.

"You'd still be a newsboy if you hadn't left." Spot pointed out bluntly. Jack sucked at his front teeth in annoyance at the truth in Spot's words. Manhattan had made Jack Kelly a newsboy and in Manhattan, Jack knew he'd always remain a newsboy. It was what he knew, it was what he was and it was as inescapable as the morning sunrise.

"Other guys have stopped being newsboys." Jack gritted out stubbornly.

"Yeah to work in factories or join a gang and die before they turn 25." Spot shrugged nonchalantly aware of the future they had escaped.

"We could have done something different." Jack insisted.

"We did do something different." David pointed out. Jack growled as he clutched to the letter still in his hand. His eye caught the curve of a question mark and he reread the sentence that preceded the symbol.

"She asks when we'll get to Santa Fe." He informed his companions.

"You sure it ain't just you asking Kelly?" Spot yawned.

"We're closer than we've ever been." Jack practically whined.

"But we haven't heard of any work there." David frowned.

"How do we know the tip in California is right, how would Critter know anything about this Rose parade all the way in New York?" Jack challenged. The eldest of the three glared at Spot, daring him to yet again come to the defense of his oldest mentor.

"Like I said Kelly, Critter O'Connell ain't never wrong." Spot shrugged.

"We did ask about it in town, people did say it was a good tip." David tried to reason with Jack. Both Spot and David knew it was going to be a fight to convince Cowboy to travel away from Santa Fe, the one place the man had been dreaming about seeing since he was a boy. But it had to be done. The work in California for the Rose Parade was too good to pass up, an opportunity to work through the winter season.

"You think it's true, about the spring in the winter?" Spot asked suddenly intrigued by their newest venture. Jack rolled his eyes as he flattened out the letter still in his hand and he set about to pulling out a new piece of paper.

"It's got to still be cold. But maybe their flowers bloom in the winter?' Jack wondered aloud.

"What's the name of the town Dave?" Spot demanded. David pulled out his train ticket, the first legitimate train ticket the young man had ever held in his life. Up until this point, the three men had been hopping trains and sitting in cargo cars until they thought they were going to be discovered. Five months they had been traveling like that, from town to town across the Great American Desert. But after months of steady work and the prospect of more work, the three young men had succumb to the luxury of being counted passengers on the Santa Fe Line to California.

"Pasadena." David responded reading the name carefully printed on his ticket.

"What kind of name is Pasadena for a town?" Spot demanded.

"Spell that out Dave," Jack prompted as he started writing.

"Tell her we heading to a place with a stupid name." Spot suggested.

"She won't be able to send a letter addressed to a place with a stupid name." Jack sighed. The train whistle blew loudly over their heads and in a lurch motion the train started moving forward. Jack stared out the window observing the way the land blurred into a painting. Taking only a moment to watch before turning his attention to the blank piece of paper, he began to write furiously. Jack Kelly rolled the crude piece of charcoal he used as a pencil in between his fingers letting it stain his skin. Allowing his hands to take on the familiar coloring of graying and black, giving the inanimate object the power to remind him of home in all the ways it could.

_Author's Note: I want to apologize for seemingly falling off the face of the planet. I don't really want to talk about how painfully long it took me to write this tiny section of the story, that in retrospect almost seems like it wasn't needed but of course that's just the annoyed writer in me. Taunting me for taking so UNBELIEVABLY long. That being said, please know I've fought my battle with the distraction puppets and intend to win every sword fight in the upcoming days in order to have another section (longer, probably) up in the next few days. _


	15. A Letter Read

**A Letter Read**

Casey Longfellow shrugged out of her heavy winter coat, using the same motion to shake off her overly attentive husband's grasp on her elbow. It was a minute indication of annoyance, but Thomas Longfellow reacted immediately stepping away from his wife and shrugging out of his own coat.

A young maid suddenly stumbled into the entryway, caught confused by the sudden appearance of the household masters. Casey held out her coat for the girl as she slipped out of her shoes. Thomas grinned at the puzzled expression on Beth's face, the newest household help had yet to grow accustomed to the mysterious and evasive ways which South and Cricket would never outgrow.

"Miss Audrey in her room?" Thomas asked as he hung up his own coat. Thomas voice snapped Beth out of her daze and she shuffled forward loudly to receive Casey's coat.

"There's at least three more callers today for that girl, ever since that Halloween Masquerade she's been quite the sought after… I can not allow her to keep ignoring these requests." Casey murmured as she shuffled through the silver platter covered in tiny calling cards.

"No sir, ma'am…" Beth tried answering both Longfellows at one time.

"I left specific orders that Miss Audrey was not to leave." Thomas glared up the stairs.

"Hadn't you also told Miss Audrey not to drink your liquor? Casey mocked quietly.

"Mr. O'Connell came calling earlier sir…" Beth whispered frightened of the unfiltered conversation happening in front of her.

"Did he now? Did he yell?' Casey smiled softly. She ignored the odd sensation of fear that crept up her spine as she imagined the deadly whisper Critter must have adopted for most of the lecture he delivered to her wayward ward.

"Yes ma'am." Beth nodded.

"Where is Miss Audrey?' Thomas sighed.

"In your study, sir." Beth pointed unsure if this answer would inspire more anger.

"Help Mrs. Longfellow to bed, please Beth?" Thomas smiled lightly at the girl again.

"You remember you were furious with that girl," Casey warned as she rolled her eyes while accepting the help from the young maid to get up the stairs.

Thomas ignored as he wandered further into his home. The hallways were barely illuminated by gas lamps and as Thomas pushed open the doors to his study, the darkness surprised him but didn't fool him.

Audrey was curled up on the windowsill, tightly clutching the curtain around her body. The muffled whistling had alerted her to the arrival of her guardians in the house, but the knowledge had not moved the young lady.

"Audrey." Thomas sighed. He noticed, even in the darkness, how the lump behind the curtains tensed at his tone. Lights abruptly filled the room and Thomas turned around to find Nancy smiling at him.

"She didn't have any of that." Nancy shook her head. Thomas was standing near his liquor cart, examining the contents carefully.

"It might be the first time she's done what she was told." He glared at the still unmoving lump under the curtain.

"Christopher was merciless." Nancy whispered. A choked sob escaped the lump behind the curtain and Thomas forgot his anger immediately.

"He lacks that trait." He excused as he took two steps to the window. He pulled the curtain aside to find the girl hugging her knees.

"Oh, Audrey."

She looked up with tear streaked cheeks and a hopeless expression that broke Thomas' heart. The man wasted no time in picking up the girl in his arms, as if she were really nothing more than a rag doll.

"You are freezing. Nancy will bring you some tea." He murmured into her hair.

"You told Critter." Audrey accused in a hoarse whisper.

"I wouldn't dream of telling him you were a handful." Thomas smiled trying to lighten the mood. Audrey hiccupped burying her face into his chest.

"Critter's scolding made you cry?"

"No." Came the muffled response. Thomas shook his head and moved to sit the girl on the plush seat near his desk.

"Audrey," Thomas leaned over and lifted the girl's chin so her gaze was level with his own. "I've had a dreadful long afternoon and I was rather displeased with you earlier today, so I won't have anymore of this nonsense…"

"You can go to bed." Audrey spat at him trying to pull her chin around from his hold.

"Do I have to call a bird in here?" Thomas demanded forcefully shaking Audrey slightly.

"I just want to go to bed." Audrey pulled away from Thomas as she stood up decisively, defensively. Thomas watched her drift out of the room, not once moving to stop her. He waited until he heard the familiar rustling of skirts on stairs before he stood up.

In four strides, Thomas stood at the windowsill Audrey had been curled into just moments before. His eyes traced the outline her body had left against the windowpane, trying to decipher how long she had been there. As he dropped his gaze to the pillow seat, he noticed the crumpled up pages that had been stuffed between her body and the wall. Thomas sat down, reaching out for one of the crumpled pages. Using the base of his right hand, he smoothed out the crumpled letter against the wall.

"Jack. I should have known." Thomas muttered. He took the two other crumpled papers over to his desk. He smoothed out each piece of the letter with his hand before collecting them in order and setting them under a large book. He dropped down into his office chair and pulled out the evening paper to read while waiting for the letter to flatten back out.

A teacup clattered nervously against a plate and Thomas looked up to find Nancy standing at his door again.

"She went to bed?" The maid guessed.

"That's what she wanted." Thomas shrugged. Nancy smiled but shook her head as she carried the tea to Thomas' desk.

"I don't think it's what she wanted." Nancy provided.

"Well she should learn to say what she wants." Thomas muttered annoyed. Nancy didn't respond though Thomas knew she had an opinion on the matter. He started sipping the tea and looked up at the only maid he had taken from his parents' household. A woman just barely older than himself, that had known him most of his adult life.

"You are helping her. These things take time, no matter how impatient Christopher O'Connell is on the matter." Nancy gritted her teeth. Thomas set down his tea and quirked an eyebrow as he waited for Nancy to speak her mind.

"You don't agree with Critter?" Thomas smiled.

"I think all of you forget that child has had herself a lifetime of worry and hurt. She might be looking like a grown woman, but she's still child. You all expect a great deal from that girl." Nancy crossed her arms and glared at Thomas. A glare so familiar, as Nancy had been the only maid in his parents' home that had ever known he was a bird. She would glare just like this every time he knocked on the service door in the middle of the night, scrapped and bruised.

"She's yet to actual disappoint me, so I suppose it's her own fault we all expect a great deal from her." Thomas defended. A light tap on the window interrupted the conversation. Nancy jumped over to open the glass, to find a boy no older than six clutching to the rain gutter pipe.

"Laces took off a couple of minutes ago." The boy squeaked. Thomas was on his feet and at the window in seconds, he reached out and pulled the little boy into his study.

"Where did she go?" He demanded.

"Out the servants door, back on the other side of the house. I don't know where she went sir, I was just told that if she left I had to tell you." The boy shook nervously as he stammered into his chest.

"Why'd it take you so long to tell me?" Thomas demanded shooting a glance out the window. Someone had to be following her. Someone was always following her.

"I had to climb in to tell you." The little boy whimpered. Thomas ran hand over his face, calculating it would take exactly three minutes before Critter O'Connell found out his newest charge had disappeared into the night.

"Do you know where she went?" Thomas asked.

"No, sir." The boy squeaked.

"Do you know why she left?"

"No, sir." The boy shook his head apologetically.

"Go on then, back to your perch then." Thomas waved the boy off. Nancy rustled away with the boy and left Thomas pacing alone in his office. Thomas Longfellow was not overly worried about Audrey. She was never alone in the city, no matter how much she tried. He was concerned with why she left.

Something had happened. Audrey had been drunk that afternoon. The kind of drunk that happens only when something happens. Thomas hadn't seen it before, hadn't thought about it before. Audrey had been destructive before. Sadness overtook her that was inexplicable to most and usually out of the blue. But today, it had been as if something had snapped. Thomas walked back to his desk, scooted the book from the letter and read.

_…on a train to Pasadena, we'll go to Santa Fe sooner or later. _


	16. Running into a Bird

**Running into a Bird**

Audrey Alexandra Kai could hear the low humming whistling coming from every direction. She saw the way the shadows dashed under the street lamps and could always feel when a pair of eyes caught sight of her. But the stubborn girl refused to make it easy for Critter O'Connell's personal army to find her tonight. The challenge of going unnoticed distracted her for blocks at a time, before suddenly a sob would escape her and tears would burn down her frozen cheeks. Trying to regain control of her emotions, she slowed long enough to catch her own reflection in a closed shop window. The reflection of a child drowning in an oversize coat and a top hat that was held in place by a nest of hair, a sad little girl. Audrey tugged down on the brim of the top hat desperately trying to hide from her own reflection, from the light and the incessant whistling. She started running again, letting the sensation of her stocking clad feet guide her into the uneven terrain of delivery allies.

She didn't know where she was heading, but it didn't really matter. Jack Kelly was never coming back to New York City and of this she was despairingly confident. There was always going to be another train or another place that led him away. The glimmer of hope Audrey had not even know she had that he would return as soon as he saw Santa Fe had been extinguished with the news of his going to Pasadena. The tears burned again pressed her palm angrily at her face, Jack Kelly had left her. Spot Conlon had left her. No one was coming back to this wretchedly lit disaster.

Audrey reached out with both her hands and pressed her fingers into the gritty brick of the buildings. In the west they had space, the endless brick and mortar no longer trapped them. Jack didn't have to climb out the window and pull himself up the fire escape to catch a glimpse of the stars. No, he had told her about the blanket of stars he just had to look up to see. New York City was the greatest city in the world for anyone but Jack Kelly. The whistling grew louder and Audrey pushed forward again, trying to refuse the instinct to just curl up against the brick wall. She barreled around a corner, catching her ankle on a foot. She tumbled forward, shooting out her arms to break the fall but the young woman never reached the ground. A strong had scooped underneath her stomach and she was balanced back on her feet instantly.

"You look ridiculous." Jasper scoffed. He snapped his wrist from inside his coat pulling out a handkerchief and holding it out to her with his index finger.

"Jasper?' Audrey hiccupped confused.

"Why aren't you wearing any shoes?" Jasper frowned as he caught a toe poking out from under her skirts.

"Boots take too long to put on and they make quite a bit of noise." Audrey retorted finally taking the handkerchief.

"I believe you were trying to give us the slip Miss Audrey?" Jasper leaned forward and whispered. He pressed his thumb up to her face, catching his own handkerchief to catch another tear rolling down her cheek.

"You are in Manhattan…" Audrey blinked faster, trying to control the tears. Jasper rolled his eyes as his hand suddenly pressed into her lower back, pushing her down a set of steps. Audrey didn't fight his led as she knew it was dangerous for them to be out on the street talking in hushed whispered tones. Because though Audrey was hardly recognizable in her state she was hardly in an appropriate disguise. And well, Jasper didn't remain a shadow of a shadow by having conversations out in the open.

Jasper and Audrey reached a door that was quickly pushed open, but not before Audrey noticed the light brown feather settled on the doorframe.

"By the fire, she must have near frozen her feet near off." Jasper grumbled pushing Audrey into the small space with air that smelled of burnt potatoes. A pair of quick hands, gathered up Audrey's stolen coat and hat and she was nestled next to the fire with a blanket before she even noticed. A pair of familiar blue eyes smiled at her, as a woman slipped back behind a counter to finish washing dishes. Audrey noticed quickly enough she was in a small pastry shop, the kind the washing girls might frequent. Jasper leaned casually against the door, but Audrey knew he was safeguarding against her running off again.

It had been some time since Audrey had seen the leader of the Brooklyn Birds. She fought to remember if she had ever seen the man outside of the nest, or even outside of Brooklyn. He looked more tired than usual, the dark circles under his eyes menacing and warning of a quicker temper than usual. She studied the way his fist clenched every few breaths, ready for a fight or a push into a perfect run. Jasper tried to relax as he felt the wandering studious eyes of Audrey on him.

"You going to sit here for a minute?" Jasper finally demanded. Audrey nodded at his harsh tone as she watched him pull the door open and disappear back out in the darkness.

"Hungry?" The woman asked when Jasper had stepped out. Audrey heard the sharp note of a single whistle that put to rest the low humming. The city knew she had been found. Jasper entered the room again before Audrey could answer the kind woman and shook his head curtly.

"That food isn't for her." He growled as he sauntered over to the Audrey and reached down to capture her chin.

"I'm fine. No scratches or nothing." Audrey pulled her face away from the inspection. Jasper crossed his arms and Audrey could practically hear his teeth grinding in annoyance, a trait she was sure he might have picked up from Critter.

"Don't you get tired of running?"

"What?"

"What were you running from this time?" Jasper tried a different question. He didn't often have to repeat himself, or actually he rarely actually repeated himself. Being the leader of birds, Jasper had learned long ago to not waste time coaxing someone to speak by repeating the same questions. He simply stated new questions, until he got the answers he sought.

"Do you think Jack is ever coming back?" Audrey countered.

"Yes. Where were you going?' Jasper slipped down onto a stool in front of her. Audrey choked back a sob at the affirmative, steadfast response of Jack's definite return.

"You think Jack is coming back?" Audrey whispered. Jasper ran his hand over his mouth, growling something about an ear cold and not his fault.

"I said yes didn't I?"

"But, but how do you know?" Audrey was trying to push back the hope Jasper had given her.

"Is that what it is then? That letter you got from him… they didn't get to Santa Fe…" Jasper was working out his own answer out loud.

"Do you read my letters?" Audrey demanded an anger burning up over the anxiety.

"Sometimes." Jasper shrugged unabashed. Audrey lunged at him but Jasper was quicker than quick and had pushed her back into her seat without moving more than his right foot.

"We are too busy to be using everyone to look for you, Critter is worse than Conlon about you…" Jasper sighed tired again.

"I didn't ask you to use everyone to look for me!" Audrey spat angrily. Jasper stared at Audrey carefully, his dark eyes searched her face and Audrey felt as if he could see right down into her broken heart. He opened his mouth a couple of times but said nothing, as if he was considering disobeying a direct order. Audrey had seen this face before, on other birds but it was always the same.

"You don't even know how important you are." Jasper shook his head. Before Audrey even registered the words spoken, a whizzing hiss mixed with the undeniable kick of a foot into the door sent Jasper flying across the room. A twittering escaped Jasper, from his fist pressed against his mouth, in a signal Audrey had never heard before. Two taps and the door swung open and allowed a rather uncoordinated Matches to fall in.

"Could have given me a second longer there Jasper." Matches muttered annoyed at having to catch himself with his elbows. The bird let his joints absorb the impact, before rolling his body around and kicking himself back up with more grace than he had moments ago.

"Laces." Matches chuckled as he caught sight of the girl sitting by the fire. A gritted teeth hiss from Jasper made Matches' grin widen before he quickly revised his greeting. "Miss Audrey."

"What are you doing here?" Jasper finally spat in annoyance. Matches scratched at his own ruffled red hair, winking at Audrey before turning around to face his leader.

"I know you were expecting Daisy. But she ran into Raindrop and Wild, out on Ladies Mile… Wild wanted you to know Audrey wasn't wearing any shoes. But kid was falling asleep on his feet and well…" Matches fidgeted with the buttons on his patched up coat.

"She found Raindrop asleep?" Jasper sighed aggravated. Raindrop needed to stop falling asleep when she was with one of the boys as it was becoming increasingly unhelpful and dangerous.

"Not exactly, but she was worried about them getting back to the nest…" Matches shrugged apologetically. Jasper ran a hand across his face before slightly nodding to the woman behind the counter. She started to skirt around the counter but Matches turned to her with one hand in the air. A potato flew through the air until Matches caught it joyfully bouncing it between both his hands.

"Thanks Blaze." Matches grinned before he sauntered over and settled himself on the ground next to Audrey, not daring to sit on the empty stool.

"Blaze?" Audrey mumbled the name, letting her eyes study the woman still behind the counter. She was trying to hide a smile, as she pushed the strands of light blond hair off her forehead. The young woman knew she had seen the older woman before, in a much different place.

"Matches." Jasper snapped his fingers impatiently. The man kicked the door before taking long strides to get back to his stool.

"She couldn't get it." Matches shook his head sadly.

"Who couldn't get what?" Audrey asked immediately intrigued by the inter workings of the birds. She had never been present during a real report, only during the training reports Critter had put her through what seemed like lifetimes ago. Jasper glared at her a moment before Matches spoke through a mouthful of potato bites.

"Daisy has been trying to get the guest list to the Astor New Years Eve bash." He explained.

"Matches." Jasper kicked Matches none too softly.

"The Astors, as in The Astors?" Audrey blinked trying to make sense of the information.

"There is only one Astor family in New York." Matches rolled his eyes.

"Though it would be unlikely that you know anything about the biggest social event of the holiday season, you haven't exactly entered their circle." Jasper sighed pulling out a cigarette to roll between his twitching fingers.

"Why do you want the guest list?" Audrey found herself curiously leaning forward. Birds only cared about what was happening in Brooklyn, and the greater New York newsboys, right? But then her eyes caught the retreating back of Blaze, and the memory flickered in her mind. Little Italy. Little Italy had been about Slingshot and that is why the birds knew about it, Audrey tried convincing herself. But something in those memories suddenly made her question the reality of why the Brooklyn Birds had known anything about the Italian war that had killed a newsboy. She had gotten so caught up in her thoughts that it wasn't until Jasper snapped his fingers again, that she noticed she had missed her explanation.

"You look like you are going to cry again." Matches observed quietly. The young man had devoured his potato and now had his startling green eyes fixated on her face. She shook her head.

"No, no. I'm sorry, why do you want the list?" She asked again.

"Lots of reasons." Jasper stated simply. She knew he wouldn't offer any more information and she was suddenly reminded of Critter. A glint of fear crossed her expression and Matches chuckled again. Audrey had a sneaking suspicious the bird understood the connection she had made in her mind.

"Are your feet warm again?" Jasper asked reaching out to obtain his answer without her response. Audrey snapped her legs out of his reach and tucked them under her skirts. The man just nodded before stretching out onto his feet once more, Audrey couldn't help but frown. It seemed Jasper was incapable of sitting still for longer than a few seconds. Matches also stirred at her feet and no crawled onto the vacated stool, as if he understood Jasper was not going to sit down anymore.

"You will see them again." Matches managed to quietly smile at her before Jasper had pulled her back up to her feet. He was putting her back into Thomas' coat and plopping the top hat back over her hair.

"Jasper, I can dress myself!" Audrey snapped annoyed as she pushed her arms through the sleeves of the coat.

"Critter is on his way." Jasper informed her.

"To get me?' She asked dejected.

"You could leave before he arrives." Jasper shrugged pointing to the door. Audrey stared at the man a moment unsure she had heard him correctly. She opened her mouth but didn't say a word, instead glancing at the closed door.

"Leave?" Audrey repeated the word. Jasper would never let her get back outside, waste his precious birds attention on her.

"Unless you are tired of running." Jasper shrugged. Audrey swallowed the lump in her throat, suddenly remembering she had been running. Wandering the streets looking for shadows, letting the winter air numb the pain that burned and never once knowing where she was going. Jasper had pulled her out of her dazed escape to nowhere, brought her into this tiny warmth of familiar patterns. For the last few precious minutes, her world had seemed normal again, comforting. A bitter tension, a mysterious whispering, a constant bubbling of life surging forward in a gritty need for survival had existed again. She had forgotten Jack Kelly wasn't in Manhattan or Santa Fe. But a whizzing hiss and undeniable fist pounding the door alerted Audrey to the arrival of Critter and lost of her choice.

"We won't always be around to catch you." Jasper warned as he stepped forward, cupping his hand his mouth once more to create a twitter response. It wasn't an off-handed comment, Jasper was warning her.

* * *

><p><em>AN: I know, it's been forever! I have been experiencing what can only be described as the sudden inability to string together sentences and then all of a sudden - bam! Back and so I am hoping the updates continue pretty rapidly this week but we shall see. The birds, lovely lovely kids, always seem to help me with that! So I hope you all enjoy and let me know what you think!_


	17. December 1902

**_December 1902 _**

The gleeful shouting from the merry ice skaters in Central Park made Bottle Cap try to remember when he had started hating the winter. The contemplation didn't last long as the newsboy smacked into a bundled up creature and dropped half his papers into a mound of night old snow.

"Well there went half my afternoon." Bottle Cap mumbled. He didn't even attempt to save his papers from the dampness that would render them unreadable in seconds. Instead the angry teenager directed his attention to the cause of his painful reminder to why he hated the winter at all.

"It's only five papers, I'm sure if you tell Laces about it. She'll pay for them." The bundle of rags suggested. Cap shoved his knee against the bundle, demanding a proper greeting with just the right amount of Brooklyn annoyance.

The tips of uncovered fingers swept up and untangled a pair of scarves before the bundle stood up to face him. At her full height, Daisy was still taller than Cap and the scowl on her face was a clear enough signal that she expected an apology for his brutish behavior.

"What you doing in the middle of the sidewalk anyways?" Cap demanded defensively instead, tucking his remaining papers under his right elbow as he crossed his arms.

"Saw you coming." She spat out annoyed as if it was the only answer to such a question. The two stood glaring at each other for a few moments, though neither expected the other to apologize it was procedure to at least pretend.

"Where is she?" Cap finally asked instead, slipping his free hand into his jacket to pull out a cigarette. Daisy quirked a smile and shook her head but nodded, all the same, up the hill. On the steps of the castle of Central Park, sitting on top of her coat and next to her boots, Miss Audrey read the afternoon edition of the New York World. As Cap surged forward, Daisy clasped her hand on his shoulder.

"Wait." She whispered.

"For what? She's down there without a coat and shoes on, she trying to catch her death?" Cap stomped his foot impatiently.

"She's wearing more clothes than you've ever worn." Daisy frowned at him. Cap huffed again but stood rooted next to the bird, watching.

Audrey started laughing and Cap suddenly noticed that she seemed to be talking to someone. Her cheeks were flushed, not from the cold but from amusement. As if she had been laughing in a way that Bottle Cap was sure he hadn't seen since Jack Kelly had left Manhattan.

"Who…"

"Jack. She's talking to Jack." Daisy explained quietly, smiling sadly down at the odd scene.

"Jack ain't here." Cap stated alarmed, as he again surged forward. But Daisy had anticipated his movement and her grasp had tightened enough to pull the collar of his green shirt collar against his Adam's apple.

"She knows that." Daisy gritted her teeth as she pulled Cap back to stand next to her again.

"She seeing things? Maybe she's running a fever?" Cap suddenly sounded like a child, the child Daisy remembered so well.

"They use to meet here sometimes. Even before she became his girl, sit and read the paper together. Try to find headlines before she went off to sell. You know Laces never liked selling papers, and well Jack. Jack was the best." Daisy chuckled. Jack Kelly had made his own legend, saying the same words enough times that anyone who had heard them repeated them willingly as truth.

"When you learn from Jack… you learned from the best." Cap nodded softly repeating a phrase he had heard so often, it was impossible not to repeat it when prompted.

"Just give her a minute to finish the paper before you go down there." Daisy practically pleaded. Cap gave a curt nod as Daisy let go of his shoulder. He lit his cigarette and took a long drag of it before handing it off to the bird. Audrey turned another page and looked up at the sky a moment, her eyes closed and her shoulders tensing.

"She knows he's not there?" Cap ventured to confirm again.

"When you knocked your knee into my back, did you hear Conlon reminding you that Brooklyn boys don't apologize?" Daisy asked settling back down on the ground.

"Maybe." Cap grumbled uncomfortable that Daisy knew he still heard his old leader's voice.

"Maybe you even felt his stupid gold cane smack into your shoulder when you dropped your papers because you didn't notice me." Daisy chuckled to herself.

"How'd you know that?" Cap demanded.

"I knew Spot very well." Daisy shrugged. "So did you."

Cap frowned. It was true, often times it seemed as if Spot Conlon had never left New York because of how often Cap thought of him. It was a strange mixture of memory and habit. As if Bottle Cap and Brooklyn couldn't exist without some part of their constant leader. It had never occurred to Cap that it might be the same for Audrey, no matter that she was no longer Laces.

"How often does she…" Cap began to ask.

"Every time she can." Daisy sighed, tying her scarves back up. Audrey was folding up the paper and as Bottle Cap started traveling up the hill to her, he knew she had seen him. She was pulling at the laces of her boots, still sitting on her coat defiantly when he finally reached the steps of the castle.

"I never took you to be a bird." Audrey spat annoyed.

"I wasn't watching for long." He assured her. The young man was ready to calm the anger he had seen boiling in her features since she had noticed him. The Kai temper was one he had become nothing but acquainted with over the last few months.

She looked up and her brown eyes glittering with unshed tears he hadn't seen in the distance. Cap frowned as he held out his hand to help her stand, not daring to ask her about what she had been doing.

"What are they doing in Manhattan?" She demanded as she accepted his hand. Cap rolled his eyes as he reached down with his free hand to collect her coat.

"Matters of the Brooklyn Birds hardly concern you anymore then they concern me." He replied. She looked away from him now, her eyes wandering up the stone staircase of the castle and up to the turret.

"You know this castle has been here since the Civil War and hardly anyone comes to it." She commented. A small crease of dismay formed on Bottle Cap's forehead again, it was unlike Audrey to be so flighty in conversation. When she had been angry before, she stayed angry. When she had been sad, she had been inconsolable. But this, this jump in emotion and conversation was unlike any Laces he had encountered before. He found the change uncomfortable.

"Who has time to go to a castle?" He questioned attempting lightheartedness.

"We did." She searched the castle once before turning back to the newsboy in front of her. She was more focused when she turned back to him, the tears gone as quickly as the anger. Trained eyes noticed his minimal supply of papers immediately and her uncloaked arm shot out and pressed her fingers against his rib cage.

"You are thinner." She stated.

"Less people buy papes in the winter, you know that." Cap stepped back from her touch and quickly stepped around her to wrap her back in her own coat. But Audrey spun with him, scrutinizing him suddenly running a thumb under his right eye where a black eye was lingering.

"Fighting?" She smiled.

"Brooklyn boys are always fighting." Cap reminded her again stepping around, attempting again to get her into the coat.

"More fights when they are hungry." She nodded as if she was suddenly remembering some life lesson from years ago. Bottle Cap finally achieved getting her arms in the coat and as he stared at the strands of her brown hair tucked up into a fancy bun the boy suddenly realized it had been months since he had seen her. Months since she had seen him.

"You look radiant." He smiled at her as he tucked his hand around her waist to guide her away from the castle steps and back into the cover of the streets.

"And you look tired and hungry." She sighed sadly.

"Not that tired or hungry. Though maybe I should have looked at myself more carefully in that shop window." Cap joked.

"What happened to your papers?" She asked.

"Dropped them in the snow." He shrugged.

"Should be paying more attention to where the birds are sitting." She laughed quietly. Cap cursed under his breath the irreversible training Critter O'Connell had given the girl.

"Heard you tried to run away, again." Cap ventured.

"You'd have heard it from me, if I ever saw you anymore." She spat back, the bitterness of her voice clear.

"Look, I'm sorry I haven't been around…" Cap began trying to find an adequate excuse. But she shook her head, patting his shoulder softly.

"Can't be seen around." She understood why he had abandoned her. Audrey Kai understood only too well why everyone had abandoned her.

The two friends walked quietly through the bare trees and piling snow of Central Park, traveling away from the bustling noises of the ice skaters. Never speaking of a destination, or needing to constantly chat of the months they had not seen each other in. The change in each was obvious enough to the other and though nothing was quite the same, everything remained familiar.

"I've missed you." Audrey finally sighed, slipping her hand into his. Not allowing herself to notice how the roughness had changed and his boyish hands had grown strong and mature.

"You've missed Brooklyn." He laughed knowing her true meaning.

"And you." She insisted stubbornly and Cap nodded believing her.

"Slingshot reminds me a lot of you." He commented.

"Except you can knock some sense into him, I suppose."

"I suppose." He agreed.

"Not too many fights?" She asked worried.

"Not more than ever before. Slingshot is just as hotheaded as Conlon." Cap laughed away her concern.

"Have you heard from him?"

"Conlon? Got a letter when they arrived in that place with the stupid name in California. Can't believe Spot Conlon is in California…" Cap said in awe.

"California." Audrey hissed the word.

"I'll come around more often." Cap promised earnestly and Audrey nodded as Jacob Canterbury hurried up to the two.

"Buying the evening paper from this chap?" Jacob smiled at the newsboy, a genuine sincere smile that made Cap smile back at him. A flutter of recognition crossed Jacob's face, for a moment trying to place the newsboy in front of him. But without a clean face and a smart suit, it was impossible for Jacob to place Bottle Cap. The reality also made it safe, because why would a young gentleman know a young newsboy?

"A wife convicted of murder." Cap took out a rolled up paper from under his arm.

"That sounds like a good headline, doesn't it?" Jacob asked excitedly pulling out a quarter from his coat pocket.

"As good as any." Audrey nodded.

"Miss Audrey loves newspapers." Jacob gave an amused explanation to Bottle Cap.

"Ah, the lady might enjoy this evenings paper." Cap winked at her as Jacob took his change.

"Thank you, boy." Audrey reached up and ran her fingers over where Cap knew the familiar necklace of a key sat on her chest. He nodded as he ducked away in a different direction, shouting a headline.


	18. Summons to the Bird's Nest

_**Summon to the Bird's Nest**_

A tiny boy with bright red hair and long limbs swung from the bottom rung of the fire escape. He kicked his legs a few times as if he was really trying to properly prepare for the fall he was about to take. But with a childish squeal and an accidental slip, the boy was a heap on the ground. Another boy, identical in red hair and limbs rolled out from an empty barrel and bounced onto his feet, offering out a hand to the fallen child.

Bottle Cap blinked and the two boys were gone, disappearing into the barrels or scurried away down the alley. It didn't truly matter, they were gone and his distraction for not walking into the old condemned tenement building was lost.

"You are late." Slingshot grumbled as he shoved Cap forward into the street.

"So are you." Cap muttered back stepping into the leading stride. The two newsboys glanced down the street carefully before ducking into the building. A loud crash greeted them as they shut the front door behind them. Slingshot glanced up the stairs, waiting for whatever fell to come tumbling into sight.

"… I WON'T! I WON'T! I WON'T!" The unhappy screeching accompanied another crashing. Cap nudged Slingshot before he started jogging up the stairs.

On the third floor, a bit of a makeshift battle was taking place. An exasperated Relic stood against a doorframe glaring at the fallen young Raindrop. Raindrop struggled against the basket she had fallen into, trying hard hide her face as the blush crept onto her cheeks when the leader of Brooklyn stepped into her view.

"You will if you want any dinner tonight, stop this nonsense this second." Relic spit annoyed. Cap cracked a smile, noticing how much Relic sounded like a mother of a small child instead of a legendary bird.

"NO!" Raindrop fought against the basket some more before being able to scramble back up onto her feet.

"What is it you don't want to do?" Slingshot frowned trying to understand what could cause such a raucous. Raindrop dropped her eyes to the ground, unable to look at Slingshot as she answered mumbling into her own chest. Slingshot stepped over to her, bending down to lift her up by the elbow, carefully almost gently.

"I don't want to take a bath." She muttered without looking at him.

"You are making this whole scene over a bath?" Cap chastised lightly.

"The water is cold." Raindrop whined as she stomped her foot as Slingshot stepped away from her. Another crash in the room behind Relic, made the older bird turn around abruptly. Heavy footsteps sounded from above, purposefully, as Jasper let his presence be announced before he appeared at the base of the stairs.

To the untrained eye, Jasper looked like he had been alert and awake only moments before. But to his birds and even to Bottle Cap, Jasper appeared like a man awoken from a nap seconds too early.

"Raindrop." Jasper growled out a sigh of discontent. He reached out and cusped his hand behind her neck, pulling her roughing to be standing against his chest. She struggled only until he shook her, a silent command to be still. The hallway was eerily silent until Relic appeared in the doorframe again. Jasper tilted his head slightly to the right and stare at the young woman.

"Wild and West have gone out the window and Ghost was trying to join them." Relic huffed using her palm to push up her loose strands of hair.

"I saw the two little ones run off when I got here." Cap nodded confirming the information.

Jasper slipped both his hands under Raindrops arms, lifting her up to be at eye level. The girl kicked her feet unable to control how quickly the leader of the birds had her in the air.

"Would a good whacking get you to stop being such a headache?" He questioned. The tone of his voice made it a serious question while his glare made it a subtle threat. Raindrop started chewing on her bottom lip nervously. Jasper shook her, harsher than he had intended to as the girl bite down on her own lip hard enough to make it bleed.

"Enough." Slingshot demanded reaching out and placing on hand on Jasper's bicep.

"This is hardly any of your concern Matthew Kai." Jasper glared at the boy but released the girl, dropping her gently onto her feet. Cap smiled, Jasper didn't want to be rough with her. Jasper had always been gentle but his nerves were grated and the man was clearly at his wits end.

"You will go out and find the twins, bring them back and get them clean." Jasper proclaimed.

"But Jazz…" Raindrop started to protest.

"And you will be going out with the sunrise for the next three days." Jasper added annoyed.

"Jasper!" Raindrop practically cried.

"Now. Before I get angrier." Jasper pointed at the window. "You will be back within the hour."

"Be a good girl then." Slingshot nudged her shoulder with his own shoulder. The girl blushed madly before using her thumb to wipe the blood on her lip.

"I didn't mean to wake you." She whispered to Jasper before sprinting down the stairs past Bottle Cap.

"And Ghost?" Jasper sighed.

"I won that round." Relic smiled triumphantly.

"When Daisy gets here…" Jasper began.

"Tell her you want to kill her pets?" Relic clicked her tongue.

"Something of that sort." Jasper laughed before waving the two newsboys to follow him up the staircase. Slingshot stepped up closely behind Jasper as Bottle Cap dawdled behind, winking at Relic before trudging up after his leader. It was two more flights of stairs before another word was spoken.

"Trouble controlling the family?" Slingshot snickered as they finally stepped onto the sixth floor. Cap groaned from somewhere on the stairwell.

"The younger ones are a bit more showy about their dislike for being in Manhattan. Raindrop and the boys are getting a bit mouthy for their own good…" Jasper sighed kicking his untied boots off as he stepped into a warm kitchen.

"You were a bit rough…" Slingshot started but Cap kicked his leader in the back of a knee, derailing the rest of the thought.

"He don't come to Brooklyn and tell you how to deal with your mouthy newsboys." Cap warned. Jasper smiled at the logic, Bottle Cap had been around long enough to know where a conversation of advice among egos would end.

"Yeah, well none of mine are little girls." Slingshot grumbled.

"If she wasn't so busy worrying about you, then maybe she wouldn't have even bitten her lip." He sounded almost apologetic. Jasper reached up onto a shelf and pulled down a bottle of amber colored liquor. He poured out measured amounts to three tin cups, before putting the bottle away.

"Worrying about me?" Slingshot frowned.

"She's got the sweets for you. I've resorted to trying to curb her willful behavior by not allowing her to be in Brooklyn at all." Jasper explained as he poured, lukewarm tea over the liquor.

"If only I could have such a punishment given out to me, not having to deal with mighty Brooklyn at all." Cap muttered amused. Slingshot shoved him with a half fist in the gut.

Jasper nodded as he turned around and offered up two tin cups to each newsboy. He nodded towards the empty chairs, as he leaned into the wall and slid down onto his bed disguised as a bench. Slingshot stared at the man curiously waiting, as he took a gulp of his drink.

"You summoned us here, Jasper." Cap finally sighed.

"Summoned us to Manhattan…" Slingshot snorted, his face taking on the edge of annoyance that Cap had learned to recognize as trouble.

"Don't get your suspenders in a knot, if you had not wanted to come here you could have sent word and I would have been in Brooklyn." Jasper explained calmly sipping at his drink. The leader of the birds stifled a yawn, as his eyes focused on the liquid in his cup.

"What are you doing moving my birds to Manhattan?" Slingshot demanded hotly. Cap knocked his head softly into the wall.

"Your birds?" Jasper's eyes snapped up and his whole body lunged forward, slightly ready. A tension hung in the air until Cap released an entire lungful of air.

"If you are going to fight, just fight. I put two bits on Jasper." Cap reached into his vest pocket. Jasper laughed and visibly relaxed against the wall again.

"Good man, Bottle Cap." Jasper nodded not at the newsboy but at a stout bird named Bookie, standing in the doorframe. The bird disappeared as quickly as he appeared.

"I'm going to soak that ugly smile off your mug." Slingshot grumbled to his second in command.

"The Brooklyn Birds ain't yours to command Matthew Kai." Jasper threw his empty tin cup at the basket nearby.

"They are the BROOKLYN birds," Slingshot jumped up to pace around the small room. Jasper chuckled at the impatience that had years before inspired a certain other hot headed Brooklyn boy to start carrying around a cane.

"Not because they belong to a boy who thinks he's Brooklyn." Jasper pointed out. A baseball whizzed through the air past Slingshot's head and straight into Jasper's hand.

"Why move to Manhattan now?" Cap frowned, inserting his question before Slingshot could throw his weight around anymore.

"We've expanded and Brooklyn…" Jasper began as he untied a note attached to the baseball. The man stopped speaking as he read the crumpled piece of yesterday's newspaper. He dropped the ball into an empty milk crate, where there were at least five other baseballs. Around the crate sat piles of crumpled paper, bites of shoelaces and yarn. Underneath the plank Jasper sat upon, a feather pillow seemed to have exploded in a mishap and not swept up properly. Single playing cards were lazily abandoned around the room, in no particular order. Everything appeared chaotic, unorganized, and messy but it was possible that everything was in an order, a particular sequence of knowledge constantly reforming.

Cap leaned forward and set his tin cup on the ground while picking up a queen of hearts playing card.

"And Brooklyn isn't Manhattan. We're in the greater New York City." Cap finished the sentiment, suddenly understanding. The Brooklyn birds had always been more than just a group of rag tag orphans and runaways keeping an eye on an overly important boy king. Even the infamous Spot Conlon had understood that, though not readily or outwardly. The birds had always been a network of news for the streets, the shady transactions of the back allies. In the early days there had been reports on a political deal of the Tweed and Tammany Hall variety, but those dealings had always been strenuous and dangerous.

Cap glanced over at Jasper and really took in his appearance now. Noticing how deep the exhaustion reached over his physique. The man's hands slightly shook, and his right eye twitched with every other breath. The pale pallor of Jasper's skin was lighter, paler than usual making the circles under his eyes deceivingly appear as ominous angry shadows. The man was exhausted noticeably over stretched by new demands and unruly children.

"You summoned us." Slingshot stated at Jasper while nodding at Cap. The leader of the Brooklyn newsboys didn't pretend to even sort of understand the interworking of the birds but he could tell his second understood perfectly why the move had been made.

"I wanted to explain a few things." Jasper explained distracted. A faint whistling suddenly caught Jasper's ear and the man jumped to his feet at once. He left Bottle Cap and Slingshot alone as he traveled to the front room to open a window. The evening noises of crying infants, shouting mothers, trotting horses and worn out fathers masked the whistling for only seconds after the window was opening. Slingshot followed Jasper moving closer to the open window and stretching out his right ear to listen to the whistling.

"Only one… only one…" Slingshot started whispering until finally the familiar tune dawned on him. "We're truly two birds of a feather, just one little girl and me!"

Jasper started humming the song as the two men rejoined Bottle Cap.

"My mother use to love that tune, it was popular a couple years back." Slingshot stated happily amused.

Wild and West suddenly appeared in the doorframe. The two little boys had their short arms wrapped around a washing tub between the two of them.

"Boys…?" Jasper glared at the fidgeting children trying to get into the room.

"We don't want to be clean." Wild piped up immediately, not daring to look at up. West managed to get his body and the tub through the doorframe.

"Don't care." Jasper sighed back.

"We didn't mean to wake you up." West struggled to keep hold of the peace offering as Wild finally managed to get through the doorframe.

"You get one bath this month, and tonight's the night. You'll get clean and you'll go to bed." Jasper commanded not wanting to discuss the mundane topic anymore.

"It's always cold after getting a bath." Wild whined sadly.

"You two can come up and sleep with the quilts, if you promise to get to sleep when I say?" Jasper compromised. The twins cheered up immediately and nodded vigorously as they skipped out of the room.

"That was nice of you." Slingshot commented.

"We're getting more quilts at the end of the week, it's been getting cold until then…" Jasper shrugged.

"You've got a soft spot for the babes." Cap laughed.

"More trouble than they are worth." Jasper shrugged. The man set the laundry tin on the table that had been shoved into a corner. "Corn beef and cabbage for dinner gents, plenty to share."

"Two birds of a feather, just one… Is it about Laces?" Slingshot asked abruptly.

"And here I thought you didn't care about the rhymes of _your _birds." Jasper mocked gently pulling out a beat up lunch pail and a wrap set of utensils.

"She was heading somewhere with Jacob." Cap nodded.

"The hyphen." Jasper informed them.

"The hyphen?" Cap frowned.

"That's what they call the space between the Waldrof-Astoria, ain't it?" Slingshot wandered as he shoved a spoonful of food into his mouth.

"She was going to dinner." Jasper nodded in affirmation. Another bird, a girl with fiery red hair and an apron covered in flour flew in and whispered rapid news to Jasper before flying out. Cap and Slingshot lounged around, knowing they would be in Manhattan well into the night at the rate they got the leader of the birds attention.


	19. Christmas in California

Spot Conlon angrily pushed his shoulder blades into a wall, forcing his spine to unwillingly straighten out and bringing his legs in closer to his torso. The young man was fighting to remain in the short cast shadow of the ranch house, trying without success to avoid the beating rays of the sun.

"Stupid short buildings, never had to find shade in Brooklyn…" Spot grumbled as he kicked against the dirt and felt his hip bear the grunt of his frustration as it pressed into the wall with enough force to elicit his own small yelp. He immediately glanced around making sure no one heard his moment of weakness. Satisfied that the closest living soul was far enough away to look like a child, Spot lit a cigarette.

The man inhaled the smoke slowly, appreciating the scent of something that was not dessert heat or sweet flowers. A peace settled as he closed his eyes and focused only on breathing in the warm cottony smoke and slowly releasing it. Conlon might have fallen asleep there if it hadn't been for the faint whistle. He jerked forward, dropping his cigarette into his reflexively open palm. The sun had moved higher into the sky and was beating down relentlessly on Spot's head. One glance at the vast open field in front of him and the man knew the whistle had been imagined, dreamed in a moment of peace.

"Imagining things?" Jack chuckled as he stepped around the corner.

"If it ain't Jack be nimble, Jack be quick." Spot muttered murderously from the ground.

"Maybe I will duck into the kitchen and pick up a piece of coal for you, you bum." Jack clicked the heel of his shoes in irritation, before dropping a package onto Spot's lap.

The man glared at the object with a hint of aggravation but a smile played at the corners of his mouth. He tilted his head back and squinted his eyes as he studied Jack Kelly's grinning face. Spot slowly pressed his eyes shut and inhaled from his cigarette as he controlled his urge to unwrap the parcel in his lap. Jack chuckled recognizing the twitching in his old friend's hands.

Christmas was passing rather uneventfully for the young men with an aching absence of snow and evergreens. But the holiday, at least the one afternoon, was a welcomed break from constructing flower floats on wagons. Spot was sure if he never saw a carnation again it might be too soon, but the pay was more than decent and the work was only bothersome because of the blasted heat.

Neither Kelly nor Conlon had mustered enough sentimentally to purchase gifts for each other the first year they had ever had enough pocket change to do so. It had been ages since either man had truly received a gift, that it was hardly even a thought that had crossed their minds. But David Jacobs only managed to restrain himself to purchasing a pack of cigarettes and some spearmint for his friends given on Christmas Eve in the name of holiday cheer. Jack and Spot had succeeded in grumbling their thanks and David had later found two new dime novels on his mattress. On their first and only time off since arriving in Pasadena, Jack had gone to the post office in search of mail.

"Did you get one?" Spot questioned as he reached out tugging forcefully at one of the strings holding his package together.

"Did. So did Davey." Jack leaned comfortably against the wall watching Spot's fingernails scrape at the heavy parchment paper.

"Who's it from?" Spot demanded. The patience and uncaring attitude finally dissolving as he bent forward and ripped open the package.

"The whole of New York it looks like." Jack rolled his eyes as he kicked off from the wall. Spot stole a glance up at Kelly, only to see the retreating soles of his shoes. A faint whistle started just as Jack escaped around a corner, the building saving the cowboy from the wrath of Conlon's near perfect aim. The half finished cigarette landed still slightly smoking between two rocks and in Spot's opinion an unrealistically lush bush. Squinting at the brightness of the inescapable sunlight and roughly smearing beads of sweat across his forehead, Spot begrudgingly got to his feet tucking his unopened package against his chest.

He knew Jack and David had retreated to whatever shade and quiet they could find to open their gifts and he intended to do the same. It was only a matter of retrieving his perfectly good smoke he had foolishly aimed at Kelly and finding the mythical shade.

"Any respectable bush would be bare in the middle of winter." Spot muttered as he swatted away a branch to collect his cigarette.

Rolling it between his fingers carefully, the man cast a sweeping glance at his surroundings looking for the longest cast shadow. The woods would be cool, but Spot knew that Jack would have wandered down there to lounge in the tall trees protective cover. It wasn't often these days that the three traveling companions weren't together, and it wasn't that they minded or were even unaccustomed to the company, but on this Christmas day each man wanted to be alone.

It was their first Christmas outside of New York and there had been no snow and no newspaper party but there had hardly been time to notice. The Rose Parade council had given them their first afternoon off in weeks in the name of Christmas with an apologetic warning it would be their only holiday until after the parade was done. The hired hands had scattered, each seeking their own peace and rest, so he steered away from the boarding house preferring isolation.

With an annoyed huff the young man pulled his gray cap over his sweat dampen hair, casting a sufficient shade over his eyes as his hands carefully pulled parchment to reveal the contents of his package. He had never had much time to just sit still in Brooklyn, so he was an expert at doing most things at a brisk walking pace.

A couple of cigarettes, half a dozen matches, a pair of dice, and several marbles – the real good shooters – rolled around over a copy of the New York Sun and a bundle of letters. A brand new gray cap, almost identical to the one he still sported, was rolled up among the new treasures. Spot frowned at the new cap, trying to decipher who among them had enough to spare on such an extravagant gift.

He ducked into the barn and jumped into an empty wagon, glad for the unexpected holiday afternoon that had scattered all the men and settled a quiet over the ranch. Barrels of flowers and cut stems littered the ground and the now familiar sweetness in the air was easy to ignore as Spot blew a stream of smoke over his own nose. Resting his package on his lap, Spot reached for the cap first unrolling it to find a letter.

_I hope you haven't taken to wearing a cowboy hat. You would look ridiculous in them._

He read the words before he recognized the handwriting and instantly heard the snickering tone of Laces in his ear.

"Would not." He growled at the letter. Though he himself had stubbornly refused to wear the absurd hats that Jack had taken to wearing these days, no matter how they protected the back of Kelly's neck from the burning sun. He set aside the letter from Laces, not wanting to know of her first. He knew she would be teasing and jovial in her letter, but there would be the hint of anger that had plagued all her letters and the uncontainable sadness he couldn't quite bear in the daylight. Her letter was tucked back into the new cap, he now recognized as her usual defiant behavior. She bought the cap because she was now the ward of a rich family, and that was why they had left her behind and she refuse to let them forget it.

His callous hands sorted through his bundle. Finding a piece of toffee attached to one letter. Only Critter O'Connell had ever bribed Spot Conlon with sweets, so it was easy to recognize who had written this particular letter. Spot popped the candy greedily into his mouth and stretched out on the bed of the wagon to read news of the city.

_She's figured it out. _The letter started without preamble and Spot actually smiled. Critter always did get right down to business and some things refused to change.


End file.
